The Ancient's Tale

Another evening spent at the Rose, this time watching my favourite Shakespeare play - Othello. Ironically enough, given that last time I was at the Rose, d had a power cut at home, as we were waiting in line to go in tonight....the Rose had a power cut.

I've often wondered why whenever people cast the part of Iago - the furiously jealous 'Ancient' or Ensign who spins webs of lies and deceit and spins a whole handful of characters to untimely deaths - they always tend to cast a stick-thin man, because I can guarantee you, any fat male teenager who's exposed to the play will identify hugely with the character. Overlooked by his boss despite his own sense of self-worth, lustful but seen as everybody's best friend, furious that his pretty-boy colleague is promoted over him, and absolutely certain that his brain is more powerful than that of anyone else around him...Oh and let's not forget, paranoid that his own good fortune in getting a wife (for which, in schoolboy terms, substitute girlfriend) is fake, and that everybody the world sees as better or more masculine than he is has slept with her - an idea which, to use his line 'gnaws his innards like a poisonous mineral.'

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying only fat fucks can feel that paralysing, and yet empowering, white hot fluid jealousy that Shakespeare talks about - of course I'm not. I'm just saying that in terms of the dynamics of the play - the character who feels paranoid and isolated and in his own world, yet trusted by men and women alike as no threat - it's a very fat-friendly character.

And yes of course I'm biassed by the fact that I'd love to have been able, as a teenager, to say those wonderful, insightful words in public, in front of an audience...instead of frankly saying them to a mirror that reflected my wobbling chins as I actually felt the jealousy towards all my friends who were hooking up and leaving me behind, and then coming to me when things went wrong, to take advantage of my scheming, analtyical mwahahaing brain.

Erm...did I mention I had a weird teenagerhood? It was half-Iago, half-Richard III (when he says his only joy in the world is to command and check those who were of 'better person than myself'). And while I'm not saying fat fucks are naturally cleverer and more devious than the pretty people in the world, being fat as a teenager, when I first encountered the play, was certainly a strong element in my own sense of isolation, and the world's sense of who I was, and why that didn't matter very much.

Annnyway - not sure what all that was about. Just drivel, probably. A good night at the theatre, eating buggerall and walking quite a way. Going to bed hungry, if I'm honest, cos I ended up having a heavyish lunch. Still determined to kick the bejeesus out of the two-stone marker and make some progress. Hell, could use some gnawing like a poisonous mineral right about now!