An Edmonton theatre company has cancelled its production of Othello after controversy erupted over the casting of a white woman as the lead, traditionally a role filled by a person of colour.

The Walterdale Theatre Associates, a volunteer-run community theatre since 1958, issued a statement Tuesday saying they were cancelling their production after the company said members received threats, both online and in-person.

The play was set to open Feb. 8.

“This is a heart-breaking decision, but as a community of volunteers and artists, we can’t continue with a production where the safety of members of our cast has been threatened,” Adam Kuss, president of the Board of Directors of Walterdale Theatre, said in the release.

Edmonton police said that they talked to somebody from the theatre but “the individual has elected not to file a formal complaint, at this time.”

Anne Marie Szucs, artistic director of Walterdale and director of Othello said other members of the community had expressed their concern over the production.

“The vision we were presenting for this 400-year-old play was a post-apocalyptic world where traditional power structures were inverted and where the focus was on the battle between the sexes,” she said. “We’re sorry this caused offence. We will continue to build on the respectful interactions we’ve had with community members on this topic, and continue to engage with and welcome any groups or individuals who want to get involved in our productions.”

Controversy has followed productions of Othello.

British-Ghanaian actor Hugh Quarshie once said the play legitimizes a stereotype, with a black man manipulated into killing his white wife in a fit of jealousy. Black actors have been urged not to play the role because it condoned racist stereotypes.

The lead actress, Linette J. Smith, who was cast to play Othello, posted a note on her Facebook page where she apologized for accepting the role.

“My initial response to playing the role was that with a woman in the role that there might be discussion about women in power roles, a conversation about the marginalization of women, and normalization of differently gendered relationships,” she said in her Facebook post.

“While my decision was derived from a focus on gender, this was not enough for this role/play and I did not see the cost. In my naivety, I thought the casting might bring those ideas to the story but no matter how promising the benefits, the cost of excluding race was too much.”

Philip Akin, artistic director of the Toronto-based Obsidian theatre company, said he would be interested to see how the role would have morphed and changed with a white woman playing it because it profoundly changes the conversation.

“Now we’ve come to a place where it’s so not a majority-accepted view anymore that the actual structure of the play around what is considered to be portrayed what is considered to be a wrongness in nature is no longer there,” he said. “What happens if the play skews around with Othello and Desdemona being a pair of lesbian lovers and Cassio is a guy. There’s another discussion there. And for crying out loud if we can’t have those discussions, if we aren’t brave enough and strong enough to have those discussions then why are we even bothering?”

Akin has played the role of Othello twice, once in Vancouver in 2003 and at the Stratford Festival in 2007. He described the role as “stunningly difficult.”

“If you look around at all the configurations of Shakespeare these days, virtually anybody is played by anything,” Akin said. “So there’s less and less constraint on what you can do with Shakespeare.”

Another actor, Randy Brososky, who was cast to play Iago said the cost of not making sure there was a performer of colour in the title role was too great.

Brososky said none of the threats came his way personally, and he did not know the exact nature of them.

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In a message to the Star, he said: “All I can say is that if the role had been played by a woman of colour, the conversation of sexism and patriarchy could have been added to the play, without subtracting the conversation of racism. It’s great to use theatre to explore new things, but not at the cost of removing very relevant issues.”

It is a complete intersectional fail for him to have believed he could have swapped sexism for racism in this show, Brososky said.

“I should have known better,” he said. “You can’t substitute one type of oppression for another. Life doesn’t work like that.”

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