Dateline: London, England – IN ITS BRAND-NEW INCARNATION at the UK’s National Theatre, Shakespeare’s Othello is preceded by a centuries-long litany of previous interpretations, ever since the Bard’s own debut of the play in 1604. Fierce strobe-lighting presents us with a continuing loop of these past Othellos, represented by historic theater programs and posters, while we take our seats in the National’s Lyttleton auditorium.
We can’t miss the harshly highlighted racism. Racism as a fundamental, innate element of this tragedy of the Moor; after all we will soon be hearing, among its many bigoted opening words, “An old black ram is tupping your white ewe!”
But about those previous productions. Among the flashing images it may be Paul Robeson who stands out majestically, indeed uniquely; he played the Moor twice, on the London stage with Peggy Ashcroft as Desdemona in 1930 and in New York with Uta Hagen in 1943. On the other hand we also cannot fail to register the National’s own founder, Laurence Olivier, staring out at us through the pulsing strobes, a white actor wearing blackface. The New York Times‘ critic at the time was appalled by Olivier’s 1964 performance, saying “he looks like a Rastus or an end-man in a minstrel show.” Such critiques didn’t prevent the strikingly blue-eyed Anthony Hopkins from similarly adopting blackface in a BBC tv production as late as 1981. Orson Welles had also used blackface for his 1952 film, though his fans have tried to absolve him of malicious intent by claiming his make-up was just “mild bronzing.”
The National’s own most recent version, with Adrian Lester (below right) in 2013, directed by Nicholas Hytner, may have been intended as a degree of reparation for their revered founder’s gross offense. The current 2022-23 production can be seen as an extra step in reparation or at least atonement, in that it is the NT’s first-ever to be directed by a black person, Clint Dyer. It is extraordinary that we have come almost a quarter-way through the 21st century before Britain’s premier theatrical institution can offer up such a breakthrough.
Evidently for this production, the past must simply be wiped away in a heavy-handed symbolic manner. How else to explain the humdrum human action that concludes the frenetic visual projections? A uniformed janitor mops the stage floor, swilling into a drainage channel whatever is no longer wanted or acceptable. Now, the play itself can begin.
AND WHAT OF THE ACTUAL PERFORMANCE as directed by Dyer, who is arguably British theatre’s preeminent black voice as Deputy Artistic Director at the NT since 2021?
I regret I found it monotonal. A dull grayness sets in, from the dreary, vaguely colosseum-style steps of Chloe Lamford‘s stage-set and the cast-members’ grim oufits by Michael Vale, and it somehow spreads even into surprisingly flat recitations of Shakespeare’s resonant pentameters.
As the eponymous General, Giles Terera (top left) offers a lithe and athletic presence, and suggests some strong personal charm in his very evident devotion (initially) to his wife, but he is hampered by a reedy vocal delivery.
It is a disappointing contrast with Adrian Lester’s turn in the role, where he played up the militaristic elements to the hilt and presented a down-to-earth but commanding individual of massive authority, all the more horrifying when his disintegration sets in.
Rosy McEwen (pictured at top with Terera) gives Desdemona a bold, not-often-seen self-confidence as the sorely wronged wife, even while she remains bewildered by her husband’s insanity. But Paul Hilton as Iago comes way too close to a cartoon villain; if he’d had a full villain’s mustache he would be twirling its points.
The final, death-filled Act Five, Scene Two demands of all the players an intensity which is sadly not fully reached. Terera’s rendering of Othello’s last attempt at self-assessment is curiously muted.
In his “Speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate” speech, we recognize his famous insistence on having “done the state some service,” and before we know it he’s using a blade to reenact the decisive punishment he once meted out to a “malignant” enemy of the state.
“I took by the throat the circumcised dog, and smote him, thus.”
And then immediately comes Shakespeare’s abrupt stage direction [“Stabs Himself“] which dispatches the hero/anti-hero to lifelessness. The self-slaughter is here so underplayed that the only benefit I see in it is the space given for another character to shine. Desdemona’s maidservant Emilia (Tanya Franks) becomes the play’s undoubted heroine after revealing in full how her bullying, abusive husband, Iago, is the root perpetrator of everyone’s misfortune. It helps reinforce this Othello as a relentless condemnation of misogyny as well as racism.
Othello continues at the National Theatre, on London’s South Bank, until January 31st, 2023.
