Loading credits…
Toni Morrison responds to Othello by centering Desdemona’s relationship with Barbary, the African woman who served Desdemona’s mother. This connection gives Desdemona an emotional relationship to African people and a perspective on her past beyond Shakespeare’s play.
In dreamlike sequences, Emmett Till's spirit confronts people from his life, including his mother and the men who murdered him. Tamara, a contemporary girl who steps from the audience into the action, challenges the characters' assumptions and disrupts Emmett's dream.
A new master takes control of the Kentucky plantation where Margaret Garner is enslaved. He brings Margaret to work in the house while her husband Robert is rented elsewhere; the master’s daughter Caroline becomes attached to Margaret. Robert returns to help Margaret and their children escape, but the overseer discovers them. Robert kills him during the struggle, and the family flees. A posse finds them: Robert is captured and lynched, while Margaret kills her children to prevent their return to slavery. At trial, Caroline unsuccessfully urges her father to treat Margaret’s act as murder rather than destruction of property. Margaret is sentenced to death and steps voluntarily from the gallows.
Toni Morrison responds to Othello by centering Desdemona’s relationship with Barbary, the African woman who served Desdemona’s mother. This connection gives Desdemona an emotional relationship to African people and a perspective on her past beyond Shakespeare’s play.
In dreamlike sequences, Emmett Till's spirit confronts people from his life, including his mother and the men who murdered him. Tamara, a contemporary girl who steps from the audience into the action, challenges the characters' assumptions and disrupts Emmett's dream.
A new master takes control of the Kentucky plantation where Margaret Garner is enslaved. He brings Margaret to work in the house while her husband Robert is rented elsewhere; the master’s daughter Caroline becomes attached to Margaret. Robert returns to help Margaret and their children escape, but the overseer discovers them. Robert kills him during the struggle, and the family flees. A posse finds them: Robert is captured and lynched, while Margaret kills her children to prevent their return to slavery. At trial, Caroline unsuccessfully urges her father to treat Margaret’s act as murder rather than destruction of property. Margaret is sentenced to death and steps voluntarily from the gallows.