Othello

Green Moor

Othello

by William Shakespeare

Richmond Shakespeare Society at the Mary Wallace Theatre, Twickenham until 27^th April

Review by Celia Bard

The Richmond Shakespeare Society has provided an enthralling and sincere retelling of that classic story of Shakespeare’s, Othello.  The themes of jealousy, revenge, racial intolerance, uncontrolled anger, murder, sinister manipulation, toxic masculinity are central to the play and these different themes are well exploited and presented in this production.  Basically, the play is about sexual jealousy and how one man, Iago, can convince another, Othello, that his wife, Desdemona, whom he loves dearly, has been unfaithful when she hasn’t.  Desdemona’s only crime, if you can call it that, is that she radiates happiness to all those she encounters, especially Cassio, and thus she opens herself up, like a lamb to the slaughter.  Iago is quick to exploit this aspect of Desdemona’s behaviour in his desire to take revenge on Othello, partly because of the latter’s decision to promote Cassio to the rank of lieutenant over the more experienced Iago.

All the actors in this production play their parts well, successfully portraying the range of emotions necessary to pull off this challenging play.  Maxina Cornwell as Brabantia, the mother of Desdemona, is just splendid.  Although only appearing in the opening scenes, she establishes the atmosphere for the rest of the play in which many of the themes mentioned above are explored.  Cornwell’s stage presence and acting skills are a joy to watch.

Will Hunter, who plays the villain, Iago, is magnificent.  Throughout his monologues his malignant and bitter nature shines through, successfully making a confidante of the audience through direct eye contact.  This Iago is everything that this character should be.   Alongside Iago is Emilia, his wife, the servant girl of Desdemona, performed by Dana Acharya.  Her presence is not much felt in the first half of the play but in the second half this character really comes into her own when she finds the strength to stand up to Iago and then delivers that passionate speech about the place of women in society.  Acharya does this with feeling and with great gusto.

Iago’s sidekick is the fool, Roderigo, whom Iago is easily able to manipulate through his knowledge that Desdemona has rejected Roderigo as a suitor in favour of Othello, the Moor, whom many consider an outsider.  The role of Roderigo is played brilliantly by Arthur Holmes.  This actor has wonderful comic timing, which he uses to good effect.

Cassio too, played by George Abbott, brings a comedic and refreshing relief to the somewhat dark mood and atmosphere of the play.  Abbott is well cast as the young, charming soldier who is promoted to the rank of lieutenant by Othello.  He really bring life to this character and succeeds in making the audience feel sorry for him when through no fault of his own, other than being possessed of a friendly nature, he becomes  victim to Iago’s jealousy and gets caught up in the latter’s revengeful scheming.  Abbott, like other performers in this production, has great physical skills, a good stage presence and the ability to capture the essence of the character he is playing.  The interaction between him, Cassio and Bianca, played by Aleksandra Kydd is truly delightful; as is Kydd in this role.  She successfully displays all the traits associated with Bianca, affectionate and loyal to Cassio, sexually free, passionate.  Cassio is ‘putty’ in her hands, unable to resist her charms.

Central to the play are Desdemona, played by Anna Fitz and Othello, played by Daniel Maurice.  Both these actors play their parts well, successfully portraying the range of emotions associated with their characters.  The chemistry between them is good.  Maurice displays strong passion for both his wife and for war.  He also succeeds in presenting to the audience his inner weakness, an insecurity brought about by those around him who, although respecting his rank, do not respect him because of his skin tone.  It is almost painful to see how Iago can manipulate him by drip-feeding poison about Desdemona into his ear.   Maurice well captures the emotional turmoil of Othello.

Desdemona’s unfaltering love and loyalty for Iago in the face of his brutality and cruelty make her a tragic heroine, and Fitz well captures the essence of this character.  She is an actor who listens and responds intuitively to the text as shown in her conversations with her mother, Cassio, Emilia and Othello.

Other characters, namely Lodovico (James Matthews); Antonio (James Phillips); The Duke of Venice (Paul Don Smith); Montano (Kevin Sebastian Pillai); Gariano (Niall Trimble) effectively move in and out of the action, providing the audience with pauses to reflect on what they are witnessing between the main characters on stage.  The thing that stands out for this reviewer is how well all the characters knit together in this production.  There is not one weak performance: all the characters listen to each other, respond naturally and make the language, without losing its poetic vibrancy, come across as natural speech.

The director, Francesca Ellis has set this version of Othello in a well-worn old Mediterranean coastal town, providing a suitable backcloth for the various scenes of action.  It’s a versatile set.  Light up the window through which you can see the sea and it becomes a scene of battle; close the curtain and it’s easily transformed into a bedroom.   The music helps to provide additional atmosphere opening with what seems a modern African beat, then in other scenes the playing of an acoustic guitar.  The lighting changes are well thought out, reflecting different times of the day.  It felt brave to set a fighting scene in complete darkness with just the use of torches to provide light, but this certainly added to the reality of the scene.  Modern costumes, but all were in keeping with the different roles played by the character.

Three very minor quibbles this reviewer would like to express: more of a military bearing required from Othello; felt that the transition between Othello’s affection and love for Desdemona followed by bouts of violent jealousy was too abrupt (cutting of scenes?); the staging of the very final scene and just before Othello makes his final speech, where some of the characters looked a little awkward.  These slight observations, however, did not detract from an otherwise superb production.  I would urge anybody who hasn’t bought a ticket to do so, providing seats have not all been sold.  This is another production that the Richmond Shakespeare Society can rightly be proud of.  It successfully held my attention throughout and judging from the enthusiastic response of the audience, the same could be said for them.

Celia Bard, April 2024

Photography by Pete Messum