Othello Presented by Shakespeare and Company at The Founders' Theatre, Lenox, Massachusetts. July 18-August 31, 2008. Directed by Tony Simotes. Set design by Yoshi Tanokura. Lighting by Les Dickert. Costumes by Gail Brassard. With John Douglas Thompson (Othello), Michael Hammond (Iago), Merritt Janson (Desdemona), LeRoy McClain (Cassio), Walton Wilson (Brabantio), Ryan Winkles (Roderigo), Kristin Wold (Emilia), and Elizabeth Aspenlieder (Bianca, Servant to Brabantio). As You Like It Presented by Commonwealth Shakespeare Company on Boston Common, Massachusetts. July 18-August 3, 2008. Directed by Steven Maler. Set by Scott Bradley. Costumes by Emily Pepper. Sound and original music by J. Hagenbuckle and Peter McMurray. With Marin Ireland (Rosalind), Fred Weller (Orlando), Larry Coen (Touchstone), Johnny Lee Davenport (Duke Senior), Jeff Gill (Adam, Martext), Jennie Israel (Phebe), Ali Marsh (Celia), Paul Melendy (Silvius), Dan Roach (Oliver), Fred Sullivan (Jaques), Noah Tuleja (Duke Frederick), Becky Webber (Audrey), and Jim Wrynn (Corin). The play may be called Othello, but productions of it are not always defined by performance of title role. A strong Iago can (sometimes rather too easily) overshadow Othello; a compelling Desdemona can significantly shift audience's focus to her plight. Shakespeare and Company's 2008 Othello, however, was thoroughly defined by a performance of Othello that was powerful and riveting--and hands-down best that I have ever seen. I, and many others in audience, were transfixed and moved to tears by John Douglas Thompson's Othello. At very least, nearly everyone in audience would have agreed that Othello embodied and gave voice in powerful ways to elements that director Tony Simotes (writing in Program Notes) saw as defining world of Othello: the fervor and passion that and its creative and destructive power can hold. Partly as a consequence, however, other characters in play came across as perhaps somewhat smaller than might have been intended by director and actors--as important much more in relation to Othello than in their own right. Nonetheless, given how mesmerizing Thompson's performance was, this seemed a worthwhile tradeoff. Thompson's Othello was driven by enthusiasms. As indicated by his elegantly disciplined public bearing, his effortless rapport with soldiers, and spirited way in which he often talked about military matters, he was at heart a soldier who experienced military life and its unhoused free condition with absolute relish. It was also clear, however, that he was in fresh and still-not-quite-believable raptures of a new enthusiasm-love and marriage. The famous speech in which Othello relates the whole course of love was delivered as story of a wholly unexpected transition from life of high military and epic adventure to ecstasies of that he stumbled upon with unimaginable good fortune. As he was recounting disastrous chances and hair-breadth scapes, Thompson's Othello was clearly reliving them with great delight and good humor but also genuine wonder; as he moved on to Desdemona's reactions--She swore, in faith 'twas strange, 't-was passing strange--he indicated that her response was equally, to use language of this scene, wondrous. To Othello, that is, Desdemona's deep engagement in his stories was a surprise discovery that had effect of a life-altering miracle. Iago Critics (as Carol Neely has termed anti-Othello critics like Leavis and Eliot) might find self-regard and narcissistic pleasure in Othello's culminating confession in speech: She loved me for dangers I had passed, / And I loved her that she did pity them. In Thompson's delivery, however, first line resonated with experience of a profound epiphany, as though he had experienced a form of accidental grace when discovering that someone could regard him with pity and for living life that he had willingly chosen; second line then suggested joy of entering new life that was opened up for him by this act of strange grace. …