Role Call
Avery Brooks, now performing as Othello at the Shakespeare Theatre, engages in some dramatic dialogue with Lauren Paige Kennedy.
Photo: Carol Rosegg
Welcome to Washington. How long will you be in town?
I've been here since July, and will stay through October.
Is this your first time performing the Bard's work here?
No, I first performed here in A Midsummer Night's Dream, with Kathleen Turner at the Arena Stage, back in the early '80s.
You play piano. Are there any parallels between acting and jazz?
For me, it's all music. I don't separate art forms. I think of the world in terms of music.
Othello: architect of his own misery or victim of foul play?
The circumstances as Shakespeare constructed them—well, let's just say Othello is like us all; we all make our own fates.
Please share your favorite lines from Othello.
Soft you; a word or two before you go. I have done the state some service, and they know't. No more of that. I pray you, in your letters, when you shall these unlucky deeds relate, speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate, nor set down aught in malice: Then must you speak of one that loved not wisely but too well…
What's more fun: playing the hero or being the bad guy?
No separation. The discovery, the journey is what's interesting.
Name your dream role, dream cast and dream production.
It hasn't happened. Whatever the next role brings is my dream.
Do you have a favorite role that you've already done?
If I had to name one, I guess it would be the play I've been performing since 1982, the story of Paul Robeson by Philip Hayes Dean.
List in order how you see yourself: Actor. Husband. Activist. Father. Teacher. African-American. Musician.
I can't list these in order! Father, husband, I'll always be, and in this culture I was born an African-American. No, you'd have to put these words in a circle, so there could be no hierarchy. Activism is something I live; music is everything. Except I'm an actor last. I'm only an actor when I'm onstage.
Hollywood or Washington: Which town is more dog-eat-dog?
Politics are everywhere, in every business, not just in Hollywood or in Washington. Shakespeare wrote about the very same things we are dealing with now, didn't he?