Why dost thou spit at me?

Well, after seeing that Macbeth at the Old Globe (actually, at the Lowell Festival Theatre, which is the outdoor venue), and not being very appreciative of all the artistic endeavor that went into it, I was pretty excited about the next season’s (1997) play, Othello. Othello is one of my favorite Shakespeare tragedies, partly because I feel so sorry for Othello, and partly because I like Desdemona. I know, no one likes Desdemona. But I do. I’m weird that way. I once told some people who were discussing Gone with the Wind that Melanie was my favorite character from that book and they nearly lynched me. It’s kind of dangerous liking nice characters. I say “nice” but I mean “good”, “kind”, “moral”, “compassionate”. Other people mean “stupid”, “dull”, “namby-pamby”, “wimp”. Yeah, Desdemona . . . most people think she’s a moron. I say she’s a moron only on the stage, not on the page, and then only when she’s portrayed by someone who just doesn’t get it.

So, I don’t know what I expected. Some understanding of the female characters, I guess, but it didn’t happen. Not that the play was without merit. It was pretty good, from an Othello point of view, but disappointing as far as Desdemona and Emilia were concerned. I’m sure it didn’t help that I have very set, preconceived notions of how those characters should be portrayed. This is one of the plays that I've thought and thought and rethought about the most, playing the scenes over and over in my head while trying to understand what the characters are doing and why.

I thought the play started out in an interesting manner: Iago's and Roderigo's echoing voices could be heard speaking their first lines (although I'm sure it was difficult for people unfamiliar with the play to tell what was being said because of the echo), but they were nowhere to be seen. The set looked like a piazza or something: a couple of doors and windows in stone buildings, a street paved with paving stones. Then, gliding along backstage, here came Iago and Rodrigo in a gondola, Rodrigo sitting, Iago punting them along. Their voices ceased to echo and became normal. It was a very good effect.

Tyrees Allen (who's been in lots of TV shows) played Othello and did rather well. In fact, if it weren't for a couple of things, I'd probably say he's the best Othello I've seen. The first thing that I wasn’t so happy with was toward the beginning, when Brabantio said, "Look to her, Moor, if thou hast eyes to see. She hath deceived her father, and may thee." Well, Othello laughed at that remark! He laughed! I was shocked. His delivery of "My life upon her faith" was like it was all a big joke to him. I've never seen an Othello laugh at that before; it's always been treated seriously (and rightly so, in my opinion), as though Othello were defending Desdemona against her father's vengeful, hurtful remark. Anyhow, that was very off-putting.

The other thing was that he lost me during the beginning of 5.2: "It is the cause, it is the cause," etc. My mind began to wander for some reason and kept wandering until he started talking about sniffing at Desdemona: "I'll smell it on the tree". I don't know why this happened, whether it was because of my familiarity with the play or whether his heart wasn't in it and it reflected in his delivery, or what. But it just seemed a little dull at that point. “Put out the light,” yeah, yeah, whatever.

Richard Easton played Iago and it was a real shower at times where he was concerned. He's a fine actor, but he salivates freely and must not swallow much. We were sitting in the second row, and when the lights were just right (i.e., behind him), I could see his spit shooting out six to twelve inches. I felt sorry for the actors who had to approach his personal space. But he made a fairly good Iago – a little too fast-talking at times, as if he weren't giving much thought to what he said. But overall I enjoyed his portrayal, which, for me, is saying quite a bit because I really dislike the character of Iago. When he's yapping on about his little plots, I generally just tune him out.

Emilia was an unhappy wife, but not unhappy enough in my mind to justify her lying about where the handkerchief was. This is a problem for a lot of people in the play, and if her character is not handled right, Emilia can come off as a big jerk. She came off as only a small one this time. Some of her anti-man lines were delivered to get a laugh and some weren't, and it wasn't clear what she thought of Iago or why she should try to protect him at first.

Oh, Desdemona, Desdemona! Actors rarely get her completely right. I think it's because she's a hard character to play. She's a strange combination of naïveté and insightfulness, pragmatism and blindness to reality, and obsessive love. One has to tread carefully or one ends up portraying her naïveté as wimpiness, her blindess as stupidity, and her obsession with Othello as sexual manipulation. The best Desdemonas I've seen so far are Imogen Stubbs (Trevor Nunn, 1990) and Joanna Weinberg (Janet Suzman, 1988), and if I could take the best parts of those two performances and put them together, that would be a Desdemona to out-Desdemona all others. Well, the actress I saw in this production did some sort of alternating between matter-of-fact, naïve, and wimpy, but there was no obsession leading to depression, which to me is essential in the Willow scene. She blew that big time, singing too fast, as if she were auditioning for a community theatre musical, not as if it were something she couldn't get out of her mind because she was depressed and morbid. So I just didn't feel that bad when Othello smothered her.

There was some very distracting blocking and movement during 4.2: all across the front of the stage, Desdemona backed away from Othello, her eyes not leaving his face during his speech about the "foul cistern for toads to knot and gender in", and he was advancing on her, but she had this full Renaissance-type dress on and she had to keep kicking it up and back with every step so that she didn't trip over it, and it looked like they were doing some strange sort of dance. I found it very distracting. At any rate, I thought that whole scene was generally lacking in intensity. (I should add, though, that we saw the play on its third night, so there may have been changes for the better in the future.)

The ending was pretty good. Othello killed Desdemona just the way I thought it should be done. There has been quite a bit of discussion and dissension on that issue over the many years of Shakespearean criticism. The problem arises from the fact that Othello first says he is going to strangle his wife and that he has no intention at all of shedding her blood. But when the moment comes, he smothers her instead of strangling her. Then, not being sure she’s all the way dead, he says, “I would not have thee linger in thy pain. So. So.”

Now some people think that he presses the pillow to her face again for good measure when he’s saying “So, so”, while others insist that he stabs Desdemona (even though he said he wouldn’t). In fact, during the 1800s, the scene was frequently played with the stabbing. But stabbing is all wrong, for the reasons mentioned. Still, simply smothering Desdemona brings its own set of problems because, a minute later, Desdemona revives long enough to absolve her husband of any guilt in her murder and to say “Farewell”. People scoff at this temporary restoration: “If she’s able to breathe enough to talk, why isn’t she able to breathe enough to stay alive?”

Anyhow, it’s my belief that Desdemona’s death is a result of a combination of smothering and strangling. She is rendered unconscious by the initial smothering, then, when Othello says “So, so” he strangles her (as he said he would), fracturing her larynx. That way, she begins bleeding (internally) to death, but not so quickly that she can’t speak her last few lines. In fact, I think she probably dies of shock before she bleeds to death.

So that’s how it was done in this production: smothering, then strangling her on "so, so". I was very pleased, for about 30 seconds. The strangling means that Desdemona, when she wakes up to absolve Othello of guilt, has to reflect the fact that her larynx has been fractured by speaking in a raspy voice. Well, this actress got the raspy breathing all right, but then she spoke in a normal voice! I don't know who to blame for that one.

I noticed a number of similarities between this production and the South African one directed by Janet Suzman. I think the Old Globe director must have seen it a couple of times and taken a few ideas from it. (And for all I know, Suzman's production may have just been continuing some alternate traditions.) Anyhow, at the end, Othello pulled a little sharp knife out of the jewelry hanging around his neck, and cut his throat with it. He sliced away with his right hand and then clapped his left hand to it, and when he did, a little spurt of stage blood went shooting out between his fingers. I’m not really a fan of gore, but that was a pretty cool effect. Actually, it could have been a contest between the stage blood and Richard Easton's saliva to see which went farther.

This wasn't a stage production worth preserving on video, but Tyrees Allen's portrayal of Othello was. He ought to be given another chance in a better production.