Daniel
Evans’ production explodes on to the stage in a high-speed, high-volume
exchange. Within ten seconds, three impressions are conveyed in rapid
succession: (i) it has, quite definitively, started; (ii) the cast are
in period costume, codpieces and all; and (iii) Dominic West is using
his native Yorkshire accent as Iago. This is only partly a matter of
playing to the Sheffield audience. It also accentuates the character’s
ostensible bluntness: it is not an accent that suggests dissimulation,
and so makes it more plausible for other folk to refer to him time and
again as “honest Iago” without spotting his stratagems for both
Othello’s and Cassio’s downfall.. It is also an approach that leads to
many more laughs – lines simply sound funnier – yet although this does
diminish Iago’s malignity, it does not cripple that aspect of the play.
Evans
presents a straightforward, uncontroversial take on the play, since he
knows that we are not there to see a high-concept interpretation, but
to see the reunion of West and Clarke Peters, alias Jimmy McNulty and
Lester Freamon from HBO’s series
The Wire.
As Othello, Peters overlays his native New Jersey accent with a slight
West African lilt, with a result reminiscent of Kofi Annan. He is not
one of the most electrifying Moors, but is comfortably far up the
league table. Most of his crucial transformation takes place offstage
between the two scenes in which Iago drips the poison of jealousy into
his ear, so that “Villain, be sure thou prove my love a whore!” comes
as another explosion. Lily James’ Desdemona is clearly virtuous without
being ethereal, and Alexandra Gilbreath’s ability to get full mileage
out of her lines is well suited to the role of Emilia.
Little of
the script has been cut; in fact, for the first time since I cannot
remember when, we even get to hear Lodovico’s now-unfortunate line on
Othello’s suicide, “O, bloody period!” (in the sense of a violent
full-stop to the chain of tragedy). There are some weaker links in the
minor casting, but all in all this forms an instructive contrast with
Trevor Nunn’s current West End
Tempest: Evans proves that a conventional production need not be reverential to the point of inertia.
Written for the Financial
Times.