Harlem Duet evokes and responds to a much older play: William Shakespeare’s 1603 tragedy Othello, one of the earliest representations of a Black character in European theater. Playwright Djanet Sears makes the relationship between her play and Shakespeare’s explicit through character names and visual motifs: The play’s male protagonist shares a name with the titular protagonist of Shakespeare’s tragedy, while white women throughout the play have names derived from that of Shakespeare’s Desdemona—Othello’s wife.

In each of the play’s three timelines, a white handkerchief plays a key role. These handkerchiefs recall the white handkerchief that leads Othello to suspect Desdemona of infidelity in Othello, thus sparking the tragic events of Shakespeare’s play.

In most performances of Othello before the mid-20th century, Othello was played by a white man who applied makeup to his face to appear Black. This tradition of blackface is echoed and ironized in Harlem Duet, as He—a Black actor who aspires to play Othello and other Shakespearean roles—applies black greasepaint to his face before performing in a minstrel show. In his book A Way of Being Free—published in the same year in which Harlem Duet’s present action is set—The Nigerian poet Ben Okri describes the character of Othello as embodying white people’s ideas of Black people.