Othello

I was profoundly disappointed by the production. I found the direction self-indulgent and the performances lacking in nuance. I agree that the best thing on the stage was Emilia. And when that is the case, a production of Othello must be judged a failure.

Very sad that the RSC could allow this to happen.

Mr E (Unverified), 25/02/09

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By placing the play in a fifties setting, where Othello is a black general - valued for his valour but not quite accepted for his colour - the racial tensions work powerfully (especially for those in the audience now grown a little into the sere).

The orchestration throughout is assured - combining speedy intelligent rendering of Shakespeare's text with some daring interpolations. Before the action begins we see and hear Othello (Patrice Naiambana) wooing Desdemona (Natalia Tena) in a strange, proud, haunting African duet; the drinking scene centres on an Al Jolson figure singing to the troups while a crude mime is played out with a Desdemona dummy; the dead Brabantio (Hannes Flashberger) visits Desdemona as they sing together the 'willow song'. And there is some inventive, imaginative, economical staging: two easily manipulated ramps form both ships at sea and a Rialto bridge; meshed shield-shaped panels variously suggest a battlefield, sea waves and the dislocation of Othello's mind.

Presiding over the action from start to finish is an Iago (Michael Gould) who manages to fuse the demonic with a sickeningly plausible ordinariness. His gulling of Roderigo (a touchingly comic performance by Marcello Magni) and Cassio (a most likeable, plausible Alex Hassell) is achieved with dramatic pace verging on comedy. It is only in his relationship with his wife, Emilia (a quite brilliant performance by Tamzin Griffin) that we sense the awfulness of domestic life with one whom the men regard as an 'honest', likeable chap. And in the final scene it is Iago's smug self-satisfaction blending into an almost involuntary laughter which provides a chilling end to a production likely to live on and on in the audience's minds.

Tiresias (Unverified), 25/02/09

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Royal Shakespeare Company The curtain goes up to music – first, a chorus dressed in military gear, joined together in some sort of Gregorian chant. Then, Patrice Naiambana takes centre stage as Othello, crooning a gentle African song. Though I don’t understand what any of this has to do with the story, it is an exciting start.

But then things took a turn for the worse. The first two or three scenes of the play are delivered in a wild hurry – Iago gives his first speech in double-time, and I could barely catch a word of it. Othello was apparently trying to outdo him, dishing out his lines in a rapid-fire delivery that left me far behind. I was afraid that the whole thing was going to be like this: a desperate attempt to deliver the full text of the play within an acceptable, contemporary timeframe of two hours or so.

Things settled down though. The fundamentals of the plot – Othello’s secret marriage to Desdemona, Iago’s loathing of Othello, the sudden expedition to Cyprus – have been laid out before us, and now the actors seem to hit their stride. Iago gets down to some serious mischief-making. And things look up come as Iago chooses his stooges: Cassio (Alex Hassell), is over-earnest, handsome and naïve. Roderigo (Marcello Magni) is a hapless buffoon.

There are more songs to come, and many of the scenes use complex, choreographed stagecraft, with the scenery shifting and mutating as a backdrop to the actors. As one might expect from the RSC, this is all very polished: everything judged to a split second, actors arriving on exactly the right spot at exactly the right moment. At times it does feel a little too polished though; perfect execution of the play-as-planned, but not much passion or spontaneity.

I remain undecided on Naiambana’s Othello. On the one hand, from my fairly distant seat in the circle, I sometimes couldn’t make out his words very clearly. His shift from amiable machismo to twisted jealousy seems rather sudden, leaving me unsure how else he will develop the character in the remaining hour of the play.

But on the other hand, I get the feeling Naiambana’s performance will be the one I remember long after the show is finished. The rhythms he brings to the lines are often unexpected, at times bizarre, and this makes him very convincing as the “foreigner” among the Venetian bunch. As things reach their crazed climax, he grows calmer, darkly comic, and sometimes he seems truly mad.

John Mansfield (Unverified), 25/02/09

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