«The Funambulesque Muse». Notes on Othello. The Gaze of Valle-Inclán and Pasolini

Abstract

A supposed adulteress, a jealous husband and a vengeance. What would happen if we transferred Othello’s tragedy to a puppet show? On the stage of a miserable theater, Pasolini displays in Che cosa sono le nuvole (1967) the story of some living puppets that are drawn to represent Shakespeare’s Othello on demand of an omn ipotent puppeteer. The audience’s answer will be unexpected. On the other hand, in Los cuernos de don Friolera (1930) Valle- Inclán masks his own Othello as a grotesque guardia civil trapped in the middle of rural, moral and despotic Spain; the story of whom is, again, seen by an audience, in this case, two intellectuals that reflect on art, posterity and triumph. Tragedy, disguised by laughter and fiction, exceeds the frontiers of tradit ional theatre to make us accomplices and, as Shakespeare would say, players. A game of Russian dolls that reminds us of the Foucaultian Meninas experience: us, the voyeurs, are effectively inside the scene, we finish the work of art. The funambulesque muse has played her game, and the theatrical stage has become a mirror.