Reviews 2007
Reviews 2007
✭✭✭✩✩
William Shakespeare, directed by David Latham
Stratford Festival, Tom Patterson Theatre, Stratford
June 2-September 22, 2007
"I understand a fury in your words, But not the words"
Stratford’s current “Othello” is a good, workmanlike production that presents the play without any of the bizarre concepts foisted on Shakespeare’s plays in so many recent seasons. Unfortunately, the production hews to the received wisdom about the play without garnering any insights that a close reading of the text would bring. Director David Latham brings out little tension in the play until Act 5 when it suddenly catches fire. But by then we’ve had four acts of well-meaning dullness.
“Macbeth” and “Othello” share often similar fates at the hands of directors. Just as less insightful versions of “Macbeth” suggest that the witches “control” the action, so less insightful versions of “Othello” suggest that Iago “controls” the action through a clearly devised plan of revenge. The situation in both plays is far more complex since both are inquiries into the nature of action based on flawed perception. Yet, directors often choose the “character-as-stage-manager” scheme because it is easier.
Iago says he hates Othello because Othello has chosen Cassio for promotion rather than him. As the play should demonstrate, Othello clearly made the right choice since Iago is not trustworthy. Meanwhile Iago leads the dim-witted nobleman Roderigo to believe that he can gain Desdemona for him. When Desdemona elopes with Othello, Iago’s revenge extends only to disgracing Othello and thus making Desdemona available again for his continued gulling of Roderigo while also hoping to be rewarded for exposing the “crime” to Desdemona’s father, Brabantio. The result is exactly the opposite of what Iago intends. Brabantio is not happy, but ultimately accepts Othello as his son-in-law. The Duke of Venice is so impressed with Othello’s telling of his side of the story he says he’d give his daughter to the man. And Othello, far from being disgraced, is sent off to battle the Turks since he is recognized as the Venetians’ best commander.
This is typical of the whole play. Rather than carrying out a fully devised plan, Iago improvises as he goes along using whatever means come to hand. He does work Othello into jealousy but Othello comes to himself at least twice and threatens to kill Iago if he cannot provide stronger proof than mere words. In a good production it should become clear that with every trap Iago sets for Othello, he also further ensnares himself. When Roderigo loses faith in Iago, Iago has to kill him to get rid of a witness against him. When his wife Emilia puts the pieces of Iago’s doings together and reveals them, only murder will stop her tale. Neither death is the result of cool plotting but of desperation. If we see the peril not merely to Othello but to Iago, the level of tension will be higher and our reactions more complex.
This is not how director David Latham presents the play and he does not have the right cast to persuade us of his view. To make the “Iago-in-complete-control” approach work, he needs to have an Iago, who is somehow an embodiment of pure evil, not unlike Edmund in “King Lear”. Festival favourite though he is, Jonathan Goad simply doesn’t have the technique to create such a fiend. He attempts to utter all his lines in a darkened, sneering tone but the result is that Shakespeare’s poetry comes out as prose and Goad often swallows the last lines of verse paragraphs. Goad makes neither Iago’s thought processes nor the images he uses clear enough to create a real character much less a fully evil one.
Latham’s approach is further undermined by having such a strong Othello in Philip Akin, the first black Canadian ever to play the role at Stratford. Akin, too, does not bring out all the poetry of Shakespeare’s lines, but he is far more successful at it than Goad and he has a stronger stage presence. When Akin’s Othello lashes out at Iago we feel a real sense of danger. When Akin’s Othello comes to murder Desdemona, we feel that he has to force himself to do it against his better nature. Latham and Akin portray Othello’s jealousy as a kind of fit that Iago’s prodding brings on. Indeed, in this production it seems more that Iago is taking advantage of Othello’s physical weakness due to the onset and consequences of his epilepsy than to any mental weakness. The trouble with this approach is that we get little sense of how Othello feels about himself, a Christian not Islamic Moor in a white man’s world who leads attacks against the “infidel”. Nevertheless, Akin’s playing of the final scene is so committed that for once we really do feel the mingling of fear and pity that tragedy is said to evoke.
Claire Jullien is the traditional waif-like Desdemona, who doesn’t have the kind of strength she should have to be called the “general’s general” as she is so often in the text. This is a woman, after all, who contrary to social norms defied her father not only in marrying someone of her own choice but someone of another race. That strength of will should appear somewhere during the play, but with Jullien it never does.
The production receives a major boost by having an experienced actor like Lucy Peacock in the role of Emilia. Indeed, of the four principals, Peacock gives the most nuanced performance. Though she says little in the first acts, Peacock makes it clear through Emilia’s behaviour that she is mentally estranged from her husband and capable of believing the worst in him if she did not harbour some remnant of her former love for him. She communicates with increasing distress her dawning realization of what actions her husband may be undertaking against Othello and his wife. Peacock makes Emilia’s final scene both explosive and affecting.
The principals receive strong support from Stephen Russell as non-blustering Brabantio, Gordon S. Miller as very believable Roderigo, Jeffrey Wetsch with much more presence than usual as Cassio and Tova Smith as an exotic Bianca.
Designer Carolyn M. Smith has set the play in period with a predominantly black and white colour scheme alleviated with highlights of red and gold. There are some peculiarities. Desdemona arrives in Cyprus with a headdress covered in shiny black spangles that would look more at home on one of the Supremes. Iago’s tunic and leggings are so bulky it looks like he is ready for hockey. Except for a few pieces of furniture carried on and off, the stage is bare. Lighting designer Michael J. Whitfield uses a narrow palette often giving a soft burnished look to the scenes. Latham directs the play in such a low-key mood that the agonizingly drawn-out deaths he gives both Roderigo and Desdemona seem out of place.
“Othello”, a play full of surmises and inferences, gains immeasurably by being played on the Tom Patterson stage. The immediacy makes the final scene even more excruciating than usual. Though this is one of Stratford’s better productions of the play, one wishes that Latham had looked into the play more deeply and that more of the cast could, like Peacock, bring out more of the poetry in the text. As it is, the production runs smoothly but lacks richness in both interpretation and characterization.
©Christopher Hoile
Note: This review is a Stage Door exclusive.
Photo: Philip Akin and Jonathan Goad. ©David Hou.
2007-06-15
Othello