What's Your Back Story?

I’m no actor, so any back story I come up with for the characters (just how long were Gertrude and Claudius an item? where is Cordelia’s mom?) is for my own amusement. If you are an actor, then the back story is obviously part of who you (at least temporarily) are.
So, tell us one. Tell us the most interesting or unexpected back story you’ve ever come up with for a character. What came first, the text or the idea? Did you imagine a back story and then find supporting evidence in the text to work off of? Or vice versa, did you get a brainstorm after reading something in the text, and expanded that backward?
It’s a Friday afternoon and I don’t get my best traffic on Fridays so I don’t know how many actors we’ll get to chime in, but I’m hoping to see a couple of different backstory interpretations of the same character. I think that could be enlightening.

The Ages of …. Well, Anyone … Game

Shakespeare clearly states that Juliet is 13 years old (while leaving us to guess about the age of Romeo). He less clearly states that Hamlet is 30, although he could also be 16. I’m sure there are other examples, but those are the ones that come readily to mind.
So, here’s the game. Pick a character, ideally one whose age is not spelled out in the text :), and then pick *2* different ages for that character, and tell how the story might play out differently.
This idea came up over in the Othello’s Ancient thread regarding Iago’s age. On the one hand Iago could be a seasoned old soldier, roughly the same age/experience as Othello, who would make a fairly obvious case for Iago being a jealous rival of Othello’s success. *OR* Iago could be a much younger, minor officer – someone who Othello barely gives the time of day to. That is, until Iago has the chance to say “Welll, I didn’t want to say anything, buttttt…..” and Othello suddenly cozies up to Iago as his new best friend, the new best friend that is that will spy on Desdemona for him. This would explain why Iago so easily blindsides Othello, since he’s hardly on Othello’s radar until it all goes down on stage.
Got the idea? Ok, who’s got one? We do NOT have to dig in and say “Well, yeah, no, according to historical fact that would never have happened….” It’s just supposed to be fun. Pretend you’re the director and for a given actor you’ve got to decide between casting someone of age X or age Y. Which do you pick, and how does that alter the vision?

Othello and Emilia, Sitting In A Tree

One of the reasons Iago gives for his hatred of Othello is the rumor that “‘twixt my sheets he has done my office,” I surprisingly polite way for Iago to say that Othello slept with his (Iago’s) wife, Emilia. (This from a man who told Desdemona’s father that he’d better hurry up and locate his daughter because she was busy having sex with an animal (“you’ll have your daughter covered with a Barbary horse…your nephews will neigh at you”.)
So my question is this — I believe, though I can’t quite find exact proof right at the moment, that Othello and Emilia must share the stage at some point. Does Othello ever directly address Emilia? Whether he does or not, has anybody ever seen a production, or considered one, where evidence is given that Iago’s suspicions are correct?
What would such an interpretation do to Iago’s character? Say, hypothetically, that we staged an Othello were it was perfectly obvious that Othello had indeed slept with Iago’s wife. Would that make us sympathize with what Iago is about to do? We already know that Othello is a flawed man, so I’m not sure how much he’d change if we added “lust” to “jealousy” in the list of primal urges he has trouble controlling. It would almost certainly make the whole jealousy thing far more obvious, since he’s got a reason to watch out for men sleeping with his wife.
I hadn’t actually made that connection when I first started this post. *Did* Othello sleep around? Is that why he’s so crazy jealous?

Othello’s Ancient

So here’s a question about Iago, maybe somebody familiar with the history of the play (specifically the military aspect) can answer.
I’d always assumed, based on their number of interactions, that Iago was something of a “right hand man” to Othello. A high ranking officer, who’d been in a position to compete for promotion(1) with Cassio – and lost.
However, when I went looking up that word that Iago is always called – Othello’s “ancient(2)” – doesn’t mean what I think it means. Inconceivable.
“Ancient” apparently means something along the lines of “flag-bearer”, if I’m reading the resources correctly? is that true? Doesn’t that seem like it would be … I don’t know, a fairly minor rank? Independent of the play, if somebody asked me whether flag-bearers were typically friends with generals, I’d have to say “no way”. I guess I’d always just assumed that ancient meant something more akin to how Jean Luc Picard always used to call Riker his “number 1”. Shows what I know. Nobody’s actually trusting what I say here, right? 🙂
(1) Props to the one summary site I visited that told me ancient is “a rank below lieutenant”, one of those answers that is simultaneously exactly right (since we know he was not *promoted* to that rank, he must be below it) and yet completely useless.
(2) On one of those “we’ll sell you a Shakespeare essay” sites I stumbled across, it said that Iago “pretended to be Othello’s ancient”, showing a pretty bad misunderstanding of the character.

I Prithee LOLeth! Shakespearean Internet Initialisms (Guest Post)

Internet Initialisms—LOL for “Laughing Out Loud” or BRB for “Be Right Back,” for example—have been around for a very long time. But Shakespeare has been around even longer. Bardfilm has come up with a number of Shakespearean Internet Initialisms. Use them to raise the tone of your texts, IMs, and Twitter conversations.

Shakespearean Internet Initialisms

SWL = [O, I am] Stabb’d with laughter (cf. modern LOL).

YHPP = Your humble patience pray (cf. modern BRB).

ITGASOMO = In the gross and scope of my opinion (cf. modern IMHO).

IJTO = I jest to Oberon (cf. modern JK).

OMUTB = Once more unto the breech (cf. modern BTW).

IYTUDWNL = If you tickle us, do we not laugh? (cf. modern ROTFL)

IFINTFYOL = I find it not fit for your o’er-looking (cf. modern NSFW).

HHHH = Howl, howl, howl, howl (cf. modern DYJHIW).

IHDASTS = I have drunk and seen the spider (cf. modern BTDT).

TORNAE = These our revels now are ended (cf. modern TTYL).

TITL = This is too long (cf. modern TL/DR).

Our thanks for this guest post to kj, the author of Bardfilm. Bardfilm is a blog that comments on films, plays, and other matters related to Shakespeare.