James Shapiro

Othello has long been understood as a play about race, love, and jealousy. But it is also a play about soldiers experiencing what we now call post-traumatic stress. In March 1947, Judge Harry Stackell, of the Bronx County Court, thought as much when he sentenced Victor Vigotsky to a relatively brief prison term. Vigotsky, a 23-year-old combat veteran who had returned from the Second World War after fighting for four years in Europe, was convinced that his young wife, Gloria, had been unfaithful.

In 2018, Oskar Eustis, who runs the Public Theater, where I advise Shakespeare productions, introduced me to the theater director Kenny Leon. He was hoping to persuade Kenny to direct something for Shakespeare in the Park, and asked me to talk with him. I’m a professor with no acting or directing experience, but I am good at cutting four-hour plays down to size, can explain to actors the difference between thee and you, and have written extensively about Shakespeare’s world.