Othello - Riverside Studios

[Jan]

Anyone seen it yet ?

[Jan]

Just me then ? If you're going to do Othello with only 7 actors it is a bold move to have 3 of them play Iago but that's the plan here. You could imagine it being interesting if each played an entirely different aspect of Iago's personality but inexplicably that isn't the case here, they are indistinguishable and in some long scenes they don't even share the dialogue - only one of them takes part and the other two stand off stage. It's just a gimmick. It also means that Iago's soliloquies are delivered as a closed discussion between the three of them entirely cutting out the audience - if you have a very charismatic actor playing Iago the soliloquies directly to the audience can make them uneasily complicit in his villainy. They would have done better to allocate two of the actors elsewhere to avoid the somewhat confusing doubling that has to happen with minor characters.

Otherwise we have the full drama school director's course box of tricks: physical theatre, song, chanting, dance, ambient sound, microphones, blackouts, anachronistic inserted text etc. but none of it illuminating the text. It is very well acted but I felt a bit sorry for them. I've seen some excellent fringe Shakespeare productions but this wasn't one of them. I can't recommend it. Sorry.

[lynette]

😂