Justine Themen talks about Nothello, her ambitious final project at Coventry's Belgrade Theatre.

Feature by Steve Adams

“It’s really sharp in terms of the deconstruction of the cultural icon that is the play Othello, which kids knew at school even from a very early age, but the narrative that Othello puts into our heads and has become part of our cultural narrative - it really disrupts it and challenges it.”

I’ve asked the Coventry Belgrade’s co-artistic director, Justine Themen, to give me the sales pitch for Nothello, her final show at the theatre, and she’s rising to the task. The all-new production reimagines the Shakespeare classic from the perspective of the unborn children of Desdemona and Othello - spoiler: the mixed-race couple both die in the original - and is designed to examine the play’s legacy as well as highlight what it means to be mixed heritage. The show also challenges the way Shakespeare’s tragedy created negative stereotypes of black men, made Desdemona a fairly shallow character, and showed how difficult it was for her parents to accept her relationship with a man of colour. And that’s just the start, according to Justine.

“It also engages with all the issues that were highlighted by the death of George Floyd, but deals with them close to home and asks questions about them,” she says, before pointing out that the show is still designed to entertain, and won’t be turning the Belgrade into a lecture theatre.

“It’s very sharp, it’s very clever and it’s very funny. It’s not an evening in the theatre where you’ve got to think about serious stuff - or not just that anyway. It deals with it with wit and humour, and it’s quite absurd too, so I think it will be a good night in the theatre as well as an opportunity to engage with that narrative as audience members.”

Written by Alfred Fagon Award-winning playwright Mojisola Adebayo, the ambitious production has been inspired by interviews with mixed-heritage couples and individuals who live in and around Coventry, and also features a mixed-heritage community chorus drawn from across the city.

“The idea for the project came way back in 2017 when I was part of the team that was putting together the bid for the City of Culture. As we were throwing around ideas, one of the things that was particularly resonant for me was diversity, but also that 2-Tone narrative of the coming together of black and white. 

“That was a story that resonated with me personally. I’ve been telling stories in the city through theatre and film for the past 18 years, and working with communities and under-represented artists to bear witness to their stories. It felt quite exciting to be able to link my own story as a person of mixed heritage with the story of the city that I’d lived in and brought my daughter up in.

“So that’s where the idea of making the narrative about the mixed-race experience came from, and the starting point for me was to go out and interview interracial couples and people with experience of being mixed heritage.”

Initially the idea was to do a two-part piece covering those two elements, but they merged into one as part of the Belgrade’s contribution to the City of Culture. 

Adebayo was then brought on board - and brought the Bard with her.

“She responded to the material I gave her with the proposal of Nothello, which is a disruption of the Shakespearean story of Othello, which we’re all largely familiar with. Othello is a black man who marries a white woman and is lied to by a character called Iago, and made to believe that Desdemona is unfaithful to him, and as a result he kills her.

“Our reimagining is: what would happen if Desdemona’s father had been open to her having a relationship with a black man? If Iago hadn’t felt compelled to pull Desdemona and Othello apart? What would have happened if the world had allowed them to stay together and have children?”
Justine says the play was also inspired by Ira Aldridge, whose story has cropped up throughout the City of Culture programme. Widely regarded as the first black actor to play Othello, he also ran and programmed the Coventry Theatre in the early 1800s, making him the first black theatre manager in the country. 

“That was a narrative that we celebrated in the City of Culture year, particularly at the Belgrade, and there was something about it that clicked with the writer.

“It feels really exciting the way it’s woven in. I think I initially anticipated a piece of work that was more explicitly inspired by the stories of the people I interviewed, but she’s done an amazing job of bedding in their experiences without it looking like their explicit stories.

“We’ve also been working with a group of young people with mixed-heritage experience, trying to weave something of their stories into the story that we’re telling on the stage. That’s been really exciting, bringing together people who don’t usually get to talk about their experiences, and I think that’s been quite empowering for them.”

The production brings Justine’s work at the Belgrade, as well as Coventry’s year as the City of Culture, full circle in a number of ways. She directed Coventry Moves, the opening event of the year, and is leaving the theatre after 18 years to take up a new role at the RSC in Stratford. She hopes Nothello reflects the legacy of both.

“My drive all the way through has been about ‘how does this building, how does the Belgrade, belong to all communities of the city?’ That ethos was at the heart of our City of Culture bid, because often these big city projects are quite focused on bringing in tourists and don’t engage deeply enough with communities. They may engage with people in the city but not in a deep or lasting way.

“So it felt really important to be pushing for something in our vision for the City of Culture that was about genuine collaboration and co-creation with communities, and I think the year has seen some extraordinary models for that, which I hope will shake up the way the city continues to make theatre. It’s about the partnership between artists and communities as we move forward, and this is another model for that.

“The show really feels like the culmination of everything I know and have absorbed from working with geographically diverse communities in the city, ethnically diverse communities, disabled communities… the whole range. The opening event felt like it did that, and this feels like something with a bit more of a personal connection as well as a goodbye.”