Desdemona's Child (blood cry)

by Caridad Svich

Licensed by TRW Plays. for Performance Rights contact [email protected]

We know them by different names, but we remember their stories all the same. Fierce O, gone, loved too much. Beautiful D, haunting, loved against themselves. Bitter I, stuck, doesn't taste love. D child knows them by these names, but doesn't remember the story pumping through their own blood. Desdemona's Child (blood cry) dives...

Licensed by TRW Plays. for Performance Rights contact [email protected]

We know them by different names, but we remember their stories all the same. Fierce O, gone, loved too much. Beautiful D, haunting, loved against themselves. Bitter I, stuck, doesn't taste love. D child knows them by these names, but doesn't remember the story pumping through their own blood. Desdemona's Child (blood cry) dives into the ruin Othello left behind and the next generation struggling to keep afloat. Navigating a sunken past amidst a drowning present, D child seeks to reconcile truth with memory.

Desdemona's Child (blood cry) exists in the eye of the storm, or our bated breath as we wait for the flood to wash over and drown us too. Desdemona's Child (blood cry) asks of us the same questions D child asks of themselves: How do we survive histories built on oppression? How do we contend with legacies we're born into? How do we begin to heal when trauma's inked into our being?

*Desdemona’s child comes back to the town in which they were raised, haunted by the ghost of Beautiful D, and with a desire to come to terms with trauma from their past. In this town, trouble rages, as a climate of hate threatens to overtake all. A flood and a whole lotta honest witnessing may start to turn the tide of human darkness. This play is set in modern-day US, freely inspired by and set in the wake of Shakespeare's OTHELLO.

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Desdemona's Child (blood cry)

Recommended by

  • Jack Read: Desdemona's Child (blood cry) by Caridad Svich
    “

    An exquisite response/pseudo sequel/sister to the events of Othello, but not too tied to it in any way; (blood cry) explores the past but lives on its own the way the best works of the Greeks did. Like her best works - and Caridad is on a roll these days - this play could take place anywhere and be about anyone, with a heart planted firmly in the front yard of the disenfranchised and forgotten. Very pleased to see CMU is producing a developmental production next year, and hope professional companies follow. "Whole world is mixed up beautiful."

    An exquisite response/pseudo sequel/sister to the events of Othello, but not too tied to it in any way; (blood cry) explores the past but lives on its own the way the best works of the Greeks did. Like her best works - and Caridad is on a roll these days - this play could take place anywhere and be about anyone, with a heart planted firmly in the front yard of the disenfranchised and forgotten. Very pleased to see CMU is producing a developmental production next year, and hope professional companies follow. "Whole world is mixed up beautiful."

    ”
  • Shaun Leisher: Desdemona's Child (blood cry) by Caridad Svich
    “

    This is most certainly not your run of the mill riff on Shakespeare. Svich takes the Othello story and creates a world where the children of that play's key player's are left to make sense of the tragedy that took place. The themes of ancestral sin and racism among police officers meld together to create a haunting piece of theatre. Caridad Svich proves once again why she is one of today's greatest artists when it comes to making sense of the "classics" in today's world.

    This is most certainly not your run of the mill riff on Shakespeare. Svich takes the Othello story and creates a world where the children of that play's key player's are left to make sense of the tragedy that took place. The themes of ancestral sin and racism among police officers meld together to create a haunting piece of theatre. Caridad Svich proves once again why she is one of today's greatest artists when it comes to making sense of the "classics" in today's world.

    ”

Production History

  • University, The Theatre School at DePaul University, 2022
  • University, Carnegie Mellon University, 2020
  • University, Rose Bruford College, London, 2020
  • University, University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma (USAO), 2020

Awards

  • Shakespeare's New Contemporaries
    American Shakespeare Center
    Finalist
    2019