ARTS . Theater Review

Less is Moor?

Can Othello survive such a brisk but uninspired beginning?


	print	email	reply	rss feed

Published: Mar 27, 2007

Shakespeare begins Othello at night, but that doesn't explain the darkness that opens the Philadelphia Shakespeare Festival's production, as Jerold R. Forsyth's too-bright lighting reduces Tamar Klein's black set to bleak dinginess. Millie Hiibel doesn't help, either, clothing the Venetians in modern blacks, whites and grays — even Brian Anthony Wilson's massive Moor, squeezed awkwardly into a dress uniform with necktie and shiny shoes.

Can Othello survive such a brisk but uninspired beginning?

All quickens and brightens agreeably when Othello's forces capture Cyprus and relax — except for Iago, Othello's officer with the lean, hungry look who confides in us that he hates his foreign-born general and wants to ruin his new marriage to Desdemona.

Karl Hanover's Iago seethes through his smiling servitude. Some Iagos are likable because of their own malicious glee, but this one's cold to the core. Christie Parker's not your typical naive ingenue Desdemona, but a smart, attractive woman, akin to Much Ado's Beatrice, who's waited for a worthy mate and could never suffer fools like fawning Roderigo (David Sweeny) or that charmer Cassio (Damon Bonetti).

Wilson, whose Othello for PSF five years ago seemed too young and wild, brings a trapped-bureaucrat gravitas to the tortured newlywed along with a booming command of Shakespeare's language and a genuine torment that emanates from deep, deep within; his climactic violence against his wife is shockingly brutal.

Director Carmen Kahn stages the action fluidly, employing just five wooden trunks (solving that sticky problem of how to bring a bed onstage) and minimal props, with insightful performances from Teresa Castracane as Iago's wife, Emilia; Frances Calter as Cassio's squeeze, Bianca; and Jim Bergwall as Desdemona's father, Brabantio.

This Othello may stick to black and white visually, but emotionally, it's a multicolored fireworks show.

Othello, Through May 19, in rep with The Taming of the Shrew, Philadelphia Shakespeare Festival, 2111 Sansom St., 215-496-8001, www.phillyshakespeare.org