Othello

Abstract

Reviewed by: Othello Tom Ue Othello Presented by the Stratford Festival in Stratford, Ontario. 3 May–27 October 2019. Directed for the stage by Nigel Shawn Williams and for film by Barry Avrich. Design by Denyse Karn. Lighting design by Kaileigh Krysztofiak. Music and sound design by Verne Good. Fight direction by Anita Nittoly. Intimacy direction by Siobhan Richardson. With Michael Blake (Othello), Laura Condlln (Emilia), Amelia Sargisson (Desdemona), Gordon S. Miller (Iago), Johnathan Sousa (Cassio), Farhang Ghajar (Roderigo), Michelle Giroux (Duchess of Venice), Randy Hughson (Brabantio), and Shruti Kothari (Bianca). [End Page 286] It seems rather late in the day to say that Othello makes audiences uncomfortable. And yet social movements such as Black Lives Matter and #MeToo expose how topical—and, indeed, pressing—Shakespeare’s tragedy can be. Stratford Festival’s 2019 season brought together Othello and The Merry Wives of Windsor, a pair of plays that take sexual jealousy as their foci. The film of Othello, directed for the screen by Barry Avrich, preserves the way in which the 2019 theatrical production, directed by Nigel Shawn Williams, used staging techniques to reflect closely on our present racial and social climate. With the help of Denyse Karn’s designs and Kaileigh Krysztofiak’s lighting, Williams takes a minimalist approach, and most of the designs are rendered by means of projections. Accordingly, the columns closely resemble the bars of a prison—an apt visual metaphor for the “web” (2.1.166) with which Iago (Gordon S. Miller) ensnares Othello (Michael Blake) and so many of the play’s characters. Othello is caught in many senses. In an early scene, for instance, he barely manages to circumvent crossfire between the Duchess of Venice’s officers and Brabantio’s staff. Brabantio accuses him of stealing away his daughter Desdemona: O thou foul thief, where hast thou stowed my daughter?Damned as thou art, thou hast enchanted her, . . .I therefore apprehend and do attach theeFor an abuser of the word, a practiserOf arts inhibited and out of warrant.Lay hold upon him; if he do resist,Subdue him at his peril! (1.2.62–81; excisions in production) Williams’s omissions are revealing: he leaves out Brabantio’s surmises that Desdemona would not willingly have chosen Othello amongst her suitors: that, in short, she had been “enchanted.” Brabantio feels wronged, but he goes too far both in denying his daughter agency and in wishing incarceration and punishment for Othello: “To prison, till fit time / Of law, and course of direct session / Call thee to answer” (1.2.85–7). Othello disputes these claims by characterizing Desdemona as an active audience to his stories and by giving partial explanation for why she loves him: “She thanked me / And bade me, if I had a friend that loved her, / I should but teach him how to tell my story / And that would woo her” (1.3.164–7). What is striking here is how Williams shows the very real threat that Othello faces: both his men and Brabantio’s are trigger-happy, and it is all he can do to restrain them. [End Page 287] Williams makes productive use of the play’s subplots, as evidenced, for instance, by his treatment of Iago’s and Emilia’s (Laura Condlln) troubled and troubling marriage. In Cyprus, Iago watches as Cassio (Johnathan Sousa) kisses Emilia, clad in military uniform in this production, when he welcomes her. Someone teases, “Uh, oh,” after which Cassio jokingly consoles Iago: “Let it not gall your patience, good Iago, / That I extend my manners; ’tis my breeding / That gives me this bold show of courtesy” (2.1.97–9). In a play shorn of characters “good” or “honest,” it is ironic that the former word appears a staggering ninety-eight times and the latter fifty-two. According to Michael Neill, though, we do well to dwell on Cassio’s comment in performance here: Cassio’s flowery explanation of his “courtesy” and “breeding” is [. . .] even more insulting, implying as it does that the kiss which he gives Iago’s wife is a refinement of courtly manners which a rough soldier like Iago could not possibly understand. An actor will have...