It is heartening to see Shakespeare back in the West End, as all too often our national playwright is absent from the glittering lights of central London. Even more cheery is the fact that this production of Othello doesn’t rely on gimmicky star casting – we are light years away from last year’s Sigourney-Weaver-in-The-Tempest-debacle, thank goodness – but instead has as its leads actors of quality who have earned their roles on merit.
There are no fussy tricks or overbearing directorial conceits at work here; instead, the key notes of Tom Morris’s production are clarity and confidence. Purists will be relieved and delighted, whereas everyone else will be glad to be reminded in a highly compelling fashion of what an intimate, domestic tragedy Othello is. The affairs and wars of the Venetian state may be the backdrop for the action, but at its heart is the insidiousness of jealousy in a relationship.
David Harewood’s stately mien and richly resonant voice gives us a calm, confident and centred Othello, someone who is not a stranger to smiling – at least, this is the man we encounter initially, before his long-serving member of staff does his treacherous worst.
Dressed in army fatigues, national-treasure-in-waiting Toby Jones’s Iago may look like a harmless and avuncular member of Dad’s Army, but appearances can be egregiously deceptive. Jones is blessed with a wonderfully expressive face, which he puts to perfect use here: Iago plots in secret and makes us party to his nefarious machinations, but when the public gaze is upon him, he switches in an instant to a look of blank ‘who, me?’ neutrality.
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Morris makes us hear afresh, aghast, the multiple iterations of the word “honest” to describe Iago, as well as the latter’s privately repeated declaration “I hate the Moor”. Caitlin Fitzgerald is a strong and charismatic Desdemona, who patently adores her new husband Othello; the public displays of affection between the newlyweds are enough to make Iago and his wife Emilia (Vinette Robinson, excellent in a study of pragmatic long-suffering) turn away awkwardly.
Nonetheless, we are forced to reflect upon the uncomfortable fact that it doesn’t take much to derail Othello; beneath Harewood’s suave exterior is a man who is ever aware that he is an outsider, a black man in a white man’s world, who felt that he needed to sneak off for a secret marriage rather than ask a senator for his daughter’s hand.
Once the cankerous seed of jealousy has been planted, Harewood unravels convincingly, imagining betrayal everywhere, hastening the moment of his own demise. Robinson’s howls of outrage at the conclusion startle us with the purity of their emotional expression, as too late she uncovers her husband’s fatal game. For once, the now inevitable standing ovation come the curtain call is entirely earned.
To 17 January, Theatre Royal Haymarket, London (OthelloOnStage.com)
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