This Othello is among the very best I have seen. Without star names and with no public subsidy, Andrew Hilton's Bristol-based company has a glowing reputation for concentrating on the essentials and showing that less can be more. Like Declan Donnellan's Cheek by Jowl company, it works because the actors and director concentrate on finding the meaning in Shakespeare's plays rather than swamping him with chaotic design concepts. Unfortunately, while Emma Rice's latest Shakespeare-as-panto season at the Globe is sold out, this three-week run at Wilton's Musica Hall of an infinitely better show has been under-publicised and doesn't deserve the empty seats I saw on Tuesday night.
Director Richard Twyman is now the creative head of English Touring Theatre after an early career path at the RSC and the Royal Court. I was bowled over by the quality of his production of Al Smith's two-hander Harrogate last year, and he tackles Shakespeare with the same penetrating intelligence. The Tobacco Factory stage in Bristol places the audience on four sides of an empty space, and at Wilton's the design is the same. It's a bit like a boxing or wrestling ring; the imposing figure of Abraham Popoola as Othello appears to command the centre of the ring, while Mark Lockyer's Iago skulks in the corners, seemingly soaking up punches on the ropes. But it's an illusion. Like a canny veteran boxer, Iago is manipulating his younger and more powerful victim every step of the way. Popoola is a 2016 graduate from RADA. Like Nonso Anozie, who once played Othello for Cheek by Jowl, he's of British Nigerian descent, and has a powerful physical presence. Lockyer is a veteran of countless RSC productions of Shakespeare, and the two are perfectly matched. The play opens with a silent scene in which Othello and Desdemona marry in an Islamic ceremony; Othello's Christian conformity to the norms of Venice is no more than an outward show.
Desdemona always seems to me to be an underwritten part; for much of the play she has far too little to say for herself. Norah Lopez Holden, another recent RADA graduate, makes up for her lack of lines with an imaginative physical performance that brings the character to life in unexpected ways. Rather than a passive victim, she's a sparky young woman in dungarees, making fun of her new husband by greeting him with mock-salutes, and using her sexuality unapologetically to get her own way. When her usual flirtiness fails to make Othello's defences crumble in the second half of the play, she is cast adrift and helpless. We see Desdemona and Emilia (RSC star Katy Stephens) transform their final scene together into a raucous romp in which Holden dances on the dining table.
This is just one of the action scenes which Twyman uses to vary the pace, introducing elements of danger and tension. The violent drunken brawl between soldiers that leads to Cassio's demotion has a current of homoerotic soldierly horseplay, suggesting a world where women are largely absent. When there is a male-female relationship on stage, it is always dysfunctional. Twyman injects a 20th century note by having Iago lead a chorus of the barrack-room classic Bless 'em all (Fuck 'em all in this version). It fits perfectly.
While not all the actors have the same Shakespearean experience and Lockyer and Stephens, there are no weak links anywhere in the cast. I've seen quite a few excellent productions of Othello, including the Donmar's version with Chiwetel Ejiofor as the Moor, and two at the National Theatre. This production, created with a fraction of the resources, ranks with the best of them. It runs until early June, and if there is any justice in theatreland, the empty seats at Wilton's won't stay that way for long.
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