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Will Keen as Iago and John Douglas Thompson as Othello. Pictures: Johan Persson Othello The Royal Shakespeare Company Stratford-upon-Avon ***** It's well recognised that Shakespeare drew the plot of Othello from a prose story (or novella) by the Ferrara-born Giambattista Giraldi (Cinthio), dating back to 1565. There Iago ('the Ensign') is deemed "the wickedest of men"; ironically Othello (in bed) dubs Desdemona "the wickedest of women" and sanctions the 'Ensign' to strike her several blows, so Iago, not Othello, kills the blameless spouse, "the recompense", as Othello puts it, "for wives who, counterfeiting love, place horns upon their husbands’ brows." Unlike in Shakespeare, the Ensign himself is in love with 'Disdemona' - which gives him a different, more immediate, sinister motive. But borrowing in this way, from the Italian or, not least, Spanish golden age playwrights, was quite justified and normal at the time. Seen at James I's court in 1604, Othello dates from a few years after Hamlet and a couple before King Lear. Othello, so vividly and superbly unfolded in Tim Carroll's constantly fresh and visually unexpected production, is perhaps the most straightforward of Shakespeare's four 'greatest' tragedies (Julius Caesar is the other one). The set (Judith Bowden; her period costumes were inspired, even if unchanging) was perhaps limited, as often nowadays at the RSC. There is nothing onstage, just a bare board floor. Everything hangs on two or three features: a kind of tall 'cage', which is used quite brilliantly at the close; a massive vertically rising and falling slab, whose value was perhaps less; and a series of sensibly near see-through curtains enabling characters to be perceived behind, or emerge from them. So everything was played out on flat stage. It was used not always inventively, but very often was. Othello and Iago are directly faced with one another. The Duke (Doge: a significant presence, and particularly finely spoken by John Paul Connoll) is on the same flat boards as the rest. Cassio, Roderigo, Montano etc., likewise.
Edward Hogg as Cassio and Madeleine Hyland as Bianca This, apart from some endlessly inventive pieces of gesturing and acting by Iago (Will Keen), who never lets up, giving us, almost to perfection, and never needlessly overdone, just the nervy, perhaps not quite sinuous, character the villain needs. Laurence Olivier and Maggie Smith played in the first production of the play I saw the first night of (aged 15). Can one compare this with that? I think so. John Douglas Thompson had such authority as Othello, such magnificent and lucid speaking, such fine personality gradually worn down by his ignorance and stupidity - regarding Iago's personality - as much as by jealousy and blind, waxing fury. His soliloquys, and those of his nemesis, others, were a marvel. Each crucial, memorable line (there are lots) "I took you for that cunning whore of Venice, that married with Othello". One need not look for a finer performer in the role. His, like most, was an RSC debut. Let's hope we see a lot more of him. The men as a whole - loopy Roderigo (Jethro Skinner), the slightly witless (hence comic) Cassio, who figures quite large later on (Edward Hogg), - ending up, paradoxically, as Governor of Cyprus; and - to my mind - a notably well played (and well-spoken) Montano (Scott Brooksbank), played their vexed part; though quite a few (ensemble) seemed to hover around with not much of a clear identity, tasks or things to do. Curiously I might pick out, perhaps gratuitously, a couple of personnel. One, at the start, was Desdemona's father Brabantio (Colin Hurley), looking a bit like Shylock but successfully a lot more than a doddering old ancient. And another - Kevin N. Golding as an enjoyable 'Clown': not, it seemed, written as funny, no Feste or Touchstone, but somehow a useful presence each time he slithered in. But the credit must go to the leads. Keen's 'Honest Iago" - not as lucidly spoken as his strikingly brilliant array of gestures (finger-wagging, pointing double handedly, whooping, crouching, wily, astute, glee, doubt, planning, devising, plotting, slurping with evil intent - was in its own way (not as brutally assertive as Frank Finlay) ingenious: we couldn't take our eyes off him because you didn't know what he'd come up with next. Slander Iago: "Look to your wife. Observe her well with Cassio". "I am bound to thee forever" Poor Moor.
Anastasia Hille as Emilia and Juliet Rylance as Desdemona With Anastasia Hille's Emilia (coming to anguished explosion at the end at hand), and a rather convincing courtesan from Madeleine Hyland, Juliet Rylance's magically dressed Desdemona excelled from beginning to end. Victim of most foul slander, beautiful, noble, pure as pure, well worthy of her swarthy warrior husband, she gave the most alluring performance: fabulous to look upon, to hear, to believe in. Such a treat, and again, marvellous casting What else? Some very desirable music (chanting, initially Orthodox), used sparingly, the last (final) passage most glorious of all, and the many excellent voices given a thrilling top-out from tenor James Oxley. More important, I guess, the lighting by Paule Constable (greatly celebrated in Opera circles). But above all, Carroll's utterly amazing finale, where the dead Desdemona, Emilia (a dagger her husband's thank you) and, at last, Othello, rise up (in that cage mentioned) so that the dead are, as it were, resurrected, or at least become benevolent, redeemed ghosts. A wonderful, exquisite piece of theatre which somehow outshone everything else. Marvellous. To 23-11-24. Roderic Dunnett 31-10-24 |
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