Harlem Duet Book

Whatever one thinks of William Shakespeare -- love him, hate him, fear him, snort at him -- his body of work casts a Gulliver sized shadow over we Lilliputian authors of English who have followed him. That shadow is inescapable. It's an eclipse. And how many of us feel compelled to challenge that shadow? To engage with it? Too many.

In Harlem Duet the amazing Djanet Sears tilts at the shadow of Othello, and as often happens when we duel with Shakespeare, she fights valiantly but walks away bloodied.

Harlem Duet is a part retelling, a part criticism, a part parallel, a part reimagining, a part reclamation of things beyond Shakespeare, and a part homage to the milieu if calls to in its title, but one wonders if the allusions to Shakespeare were ever necessary. I read this play; I wanted to love this play; I thought this play would have stood on its own without the explicit connections to Othello, and I thought and still think Harlem Duet would have been better for putting Shakespeare aside and doing its own thing.