Chapter 3: O-Dogg, An Angeleno Take on ‘Othello’ by Alex Alpharaoh
This is an excerpt from Latinx Shakespeares: Staging U.S. Intracultural Theater (2023) by Carla Della Gatta. To read it in its full context, click on the link. The book can be purchased on all major sites that sell books and it is FREE to download.
O-DOGG: ETHNICIZING A “RACE” PLAY
In 2019, spoken-word artist Alex Alpharaoh began staged readings of his new play O-Dogg: An Angeleno Take on “Othello”, which he describes as an “ode to street culture of the city of LA, that is diminishing.” O-Dogg is written in verse, with some rhyming couplets and plenty of slang and profanity. The play, which is set during the six days of the 1992 Los Angeles uprisings—traditionally referred to as the LA Riots, following the Rodney King verdict—employs hip hop rhythms and style, street language, and a diverse cast of characters in order to explicitly take up intra-Latinx colorism, anti-Blackness, and misogyny. O-Dogg dwells on how feeling Brown (having a shared experience of street culture) did not give way to a sense of Brown (community based on the commonalities of oppression) during a heightened moment of racial relations. (p.87-88)