Patricia Akhimie
Patricia Akhimie is Director of the Folger Institute at the Folger Shakespeare Library. She also serves as Director of the RaceB4Race Mentoring Network and is an Associate Professor of English at Rutgers University-Newark. She is the author of Shakespeare and the Cultivation of Difference: Race and Conduct in the Early Modern World, editor of The Oxford Handbook of Shakespeare and Race, and co-editor of Travel and Travail: Early Modern Women, English Drama, and the Wider World. Dr. Akhimie is currently working on a new edition of Othello for the Arden Shakespeare, fourth series, and a monograph about race, gender, and editing early modern texts. Her research has been supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Folger Shakespeare Library, the John Carter Brown Library and the Ford Foundation. — View all posts by Patricia Akhimie
Comments
Not a book being carried by Ethel Waters. Could it be a handkerchief box?
Peter Criddle — October 7, 2021
Greasepaint was invented in the 1860s and in general use by the end of the century. The fine soot previously used, from burnt paper or indeed cork, is unlikely to have been used for the make-up in any of the photos shown.
Angela Cockburn — October 7, 2021
Hmm, wouldn’t the choice of the role (and consequently the ‘joke’, if you can call it that) ultimately have been Waters’ own, though? I mean, presumably the actors and actresses involved in the feature series got at least some say regarding the roles in which they would be photographed. It’s still a strange choice and unlikely to reflect any genuine dramatic ambition of hers – after all, why would *anyone* aspire to play Desdemona? – but if it was Waters’ choice, perhaps the ‘joke’ is really on Desdemona, as a character whose sole defining characteristics seem to be her ‘fairness’, innocence and passive victimhood, none of which anyone would seriously associate with the actress depicted in the role. That still doesn’t make it any funnier, of course, but then again, maybe the whole idea of typecasting comedic actors in the ‘wrong’ roles for humorous effect was a bit patronising and offensive to the whole profession to begin with, because it implied that they couldn’t possibly do (or want to do) ‘serious’ drama…
Anyway, I agree with Peter Criddle: there are hinges on the side and a clasp at the centre of the item she is carrying, so it seems to be some sort of box rather than a book – maybe one of those boxes for paper and writing implements (I’m forever forgetting what they’re properly called, sorry).
Elisabeth Chaghafi — October 10, 2021