이아고의 극에 잠식된 극중 관객 오셀로

Abstract

This study focuses on the on-stage audience beholding the play-within-a-play in Othello. The on-stage audience plays a double role serving as the audience and actors. The actors’ double roles have substantial influence upon audiences in the theatre. Especially, the on-stage audience affect theatre-audiences who are watching the play on the stage. The actor/audience’s double acting is reflected on their double perceptions: one is that they are seeing the play, and the other is that they are seen by someone. They think about their identities through their double perceptions which are caused by watching the play like on-stage audiences beholding the-play-within-a-play. My point is that actor's double acting is a reflection and an amplification to audience. I consider Othello as an on-stage audience who watches the play-within-a-play acted by Iago. Iago manipulates several plays for Brabantio, Cassio, and Othello in order to achieve his target, the ruin of Othello. Iago presents the palpable proof which Othello desires to be Desdemona’s infidelity to Othello. Like a dumb show Iago sets up a situation in which Cassio and Bianca’s conversations are heard by the eavesdropping Othello. He believes Iago's dissembling plot to be a reality, and then mistakes the manipulated situation for the real thing. The illusion of the on-stage audience, Othello, watching the play-within-a-play as Iago’s manipulations, reflects the confusion of theatre-audiences watching the play. Shakespeare intends to blur the lines between illusion and reality. He makes the theatre-audiences believe that the on-stage audience’s experience of watching the play is a mirror of their own experiences in effect creating a stronger sense of reality. Theatre-audiences’ recognition of illusion from reality is made to deconstruct the recognition produced by the on-stage audience’ confusion. Iago’s play-within-a-play is constructed by repeating his manipulations. The On-stage audiences for Iago’s plays are Brabantio, Cassio, and Othello. In front of the audiences in the theatre he plots his plays, showing his duplicity. His soliloquies are a kind of “breaking the fourth wall” intended to induce sympathy from the audiences in the theatre and an illusionary invasion to the reality of the theatre-audiences. Iago attracts the theatre-audiences to communicate with him and to conspire over his plot together. He presents what is real and what is illusionary to the theatre-audiences representing both of his plots and results side by side. However, while the theatre-audiences watch Iago's plays following his intentions, they find themselves to be the deceived ones like Othello by Iago’s manipulation. Apparently they can recognize Iago's play as the false plots like illusions and probably they enjoy themselves watching Othello who is trapped in this illusion and destroys himself. Their enjoyment is a form of deception, acting as an illusion ruled by Iago to deceive the audience. They forget their reality as much as Othello does. Othello, an on-stage audience and on-stage actor of Iago’s play, destroys himself engulfed in his illusion created by Iago’s plots. Othello’s tragic death is a sort of shame for his jealousy and murder. His killing himself results from his confusion between reality and illusion and the change of perception to face the real thing. He could accept the reality which he has believed Iago’s illusions as a real thing by “breaking the illusion.” He could escape from Iago’s play, and he would leave the stage outside of his role as an actor playing Othello. The theatre audiences who watch Othello also have the same changes of perception back to their reality after the play finishes. They would be immersed in Iago’s play, and they can hide their guilty conscience, caused by enjoying the destruction of Othello and continue with their everyday lives. They lose themselves while watching the play, and they have believed the illusion as a reality without knowing it. Even though they want to hide their enjoyment and forget their lost perceptions, they realize their changed perceptions which their reality would be a illusion like a play just as Othello believe his reality to be illusionary. By using the-play-within-a-play, the on-stage actor/audience mirrors to the actual audiences. The on-stage audience, Othello, is deceived by Iago. He has a role as well, and it allows actual audiences to be drawn into Iago’s deception. Audiences in the theatre realize that the reality which they believe could be an illusion as a reverse point of view.