Othello’s ghost walks
In a bid to attract tourists to their breakaway state, Turkish Cypriots have employed one of the world’s most famous tales of intrigue and murder, producing Shakespeare’s Othello in the medieval ramparts of Famagusta. The city is the original setting of the play and has been a ghost town in the divided island’s buffer zone since the Turkish invasion of 1974. Famagusta is the site of one of the most infamous incidents in the island’s troubled history – the massacre of citizens and the skinning alive of the Venetian governor when Ottoman Turks took the island in 1571 after a costly siege. Ironically, Shakespeare’s Moor was charged with the island’s defense against the Turks when he was tricked by a cunning aide, Iago, into killing his own wife in a fit of misguided jealousy before killing himself. Tourism officials staged the play in the so-called Othello Tower of the Venetian ramparts on Sunday, the Agence France-Presse reported. As a result, the matter will be judged by the Commission, which has already come out in favor of Greece.
