The 2009 Alabama Shakespeare Festival: Othello.

Barrow, Craig ; Hampton, Bryan Adams

The Alabama Shakespeare Festival has done four previous productions of Othello, in 1978, 1987, 1994, and 2003, but the production for the 2009 season may be the best. Much of the tragedys success depends, of course, on the casting of Othello and Iago. In 1978 and 1987, the best actor in the company, Philip Pleasants, played Iago. In 1978, the role of Othello was played by the pudgy Sidney Hibbert, whose melodic Jamaican voice seemed inappropriate for the tragedy, and in 1987 the role was played by a slight, short David Toney, whose primary acting credit was All My Children. Neither of these could create the unassailable presence the role requires. For example, when Brabantio and the officers try to arrest Othello in Act 1, for Desdemona's sake Othello does not want to harm his father-in-law no matter how badly Brabantio abuses him. Exercising restraint when others do not is dangerous, but not so for a strong Othello. Without a commanding presence, the line "Keep up your bright swords, for the dew will rust them" (1.2.60) falls flat. (1) Similarly, in Act 2 Othello has to stop a drunken brawl with only a sword while opposing well-armed men. Hibbert and Toney could not establish the needed gravitas; their actions and words did not convince. The tall, athletic Derrick Lee Weeden in 1994 was a more dominating presence than his predecessors and hence successful in conveying Othello's strength of character, especially when opposed by Richard Elmore's Iago. Elmore had an uncanny resemblance to a bald, plump Danny DeVito selling used cars or aluminum siding. Weeden's strength and charisma as Othello were not matched or tested by Elmore's Iago. The 2003 production was unfortunately laughable; the only person who performed well was Greta Lambert, the Festival's best actress, portraying Emilia.

Esau Pritchett, the 2009 Othello, is an even more imposing figure than Derrick Lee Weeden. Physically, Pritchett is formidable and appears strong enough to play middle linebacker for the Chicago Bears; he dwarfs the other actors in the production, and he has a baritone voice that matches his size. His voice can be tender and delicate in the early scenes with his beloved Desdemona, but his commanding voice is real; it is to be believed. Matt D'Amico as Iago is a relatively thin man who has the look of a Renaissance Vice. In size, face, and stature he appears better suited as a servant than an officer, and one could hardly believe that such a figure would have fought campaigns "At Rhodes, at Cyprus, and on other grounds / Christened and heathen" (1.1.30-31) with his superior. Philip Pleasants's portrayals of Iago in the 1978 and 1987 productions were the spirit of evil, an intelligent Mephistopheles who left gaps for Othello to fill with Desdemona's imagined infidelity; D'Amico seems just a cunning rascal in the same exchanges. The contrasts between Pritchett and D'Amico are no doubt intended, and there is merit in that casting decision. The audience witnesses the destruction of a general and man without a peer--an outsider who has become an insider by virtue of his virtue--brought about by an inferior without a conscience, for whom virtue's "A fig!" (1.3.322). However, without a charismatic presence behind the mask of Shakespeare's slyest villain, who wields language with more potency than a poisoned blade, the production could not fully capitalize on the meaning of those contrasts. Nor could it capture Iago's uncanny ability to seduce the audience as well as the Moor. Director Geoffrey Sherman's production gives D'Amico's Iago and Caroline Strong's Emilia the social class of servants. In no previous production of Othello have we seen so many actions by both Iago and Emilia that suggest service, whether these acts be carrying luggage by Iago or dressing Desdemona's hair by Emilia. Blake Kubena's Cassio looks more like an officer and a gentleman than D'Amico, and thus the audience's eyes and ears agree with Othello's choice of officer; the audience truly pitied Kubena's Cassio after his drunken brawl with Roderigo and Montano, as he collapses into Iago's arms, weeping "Reputation, reputation, reputation!" (2.3.256). Nathan Hosner portrayed Roderigo as a meticulous fop, hopelessly fawning over Desdemona at a distance, and his performance compelled the audience alternately to chuckle, sympathize, and believe that he gets what he deserves.

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All of these casting choices are very important to the genre of Othello, for without a dominant Othello Shakespeare's play can easily become a fascinating melodrama of intrigue, or a revenge play, where a clever, courageous, unscrupulous Iago victimizes a hapless Othello. (2) Only a strong actor playing Othello can keep the play a tragedy by focusing attention on his suffering and dilemma; the latter is framed in Othello's response to Iago: "I think my wife be honest, and think she is not; / I think that thou art just, and think thou art not" (3.3.400-401). By casting his faith in honest Iago, in a scene with vows and actions that resemble marriage (3.3.478-89), Othello chooses his suffering; he chooses his moral decline, his killing of Desdemona, his recognition of Desdemona's innocence, and his final guilt and self-judgment that lead to his execution-suicide. Esau Pritchett keeps the focus on the protagonist's dividedness, which Robert Heilman sees as the emotional core of tragedy, as Othello negotiates between the values of Iago and those of Desdemona. (3)

For a Montgomery audience still accustomed to seeing Confederate flags flying nearby, as we saw on Interstate 65 less than 50 miles from Montgomery, the match of Desdemona and Othello is racially coded. Kaytie Morris's portrayal of Desdemona is decidedly pale and blonde, while the features of Esau Pritchett align with Shakespeare's provision of African features for Othello, such as Roderigo's "thicklips" (1.1.68) or Brabantio's "sooty bosom" (1.2.71). But Pritchett captures Othello's ability to transcend the external signifiers of Venetian barriers to social advancement, and he achieves the Duke's internal assessment that their general is "more fair than black" (1.3.293). (4) In a southern context, this Desdemona and this Othello are almost an advertisement about miscegenation that is not supposed to happen. Perhaps making a racist even more infuriated, Kaytie Morris is me oldest Desdemona we have seen--old enough in such a worldview to know better. Morris's age works to advantage in the scene with the Duke and senate at the end of Act 1 where she must explain herself to her father, Othello, and a large, powerful male onstage audience. Morris's Desdemona is a woman with a role to play in the world. She is struck hard and knocked down by Othello in 4.1, which brought a gasp from the audience, and she is shocked by Othello's treatment of her as a whore in the next scene. Like a top, she is then forced to "turn, and turn, and yet go on / And turn again" (4.1.261-62) in public by her powerful, angry husband, yet only comes upon a secret meaning of being love's victim in her singing of "willow" (4.3.45-54) at the end of her song. Morris's Desdemona has considerable strength. She is less caught in a lie about the missing handkerchief than stunned by Othello's passion about it.

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All roles were capably played in this 2009 Othello, but some special praise needs to be given to two actors. Rodney Clark was superb as Brabantio. His outrage at the loss of Desdemona and his racist attack on Othello would provoke anyone, so they become a way to measure Othello's strength in his mild, reasonable response to his attacker. Clark helps build the audience's dominant image of Othello. One role that we have not seen in previous productions of Othello is the Clown, well played by the sassy David Stewart Hudson. The puns on "lie" and "lying" (3.4.1-21), his lecherous views up Emilia's skirt, and his many uses of his crotch-purse tie into the debasement of love by Iago.

James Conely wrote the music for the production, which introduced the play and followed the intermission near the end of Act 3. Trumpets at the beginning of the play announced the Renaissance fanfare, but the violins that followed in a minor mode muted the brightness of the trumpets' theme. After the intermission, violins announced the theme, and the modal brass accompanied in dim agreement. The music seems to follow the action, particularly the divided feelings of Othello once Iago's "medicine" (4.1.45) begins to work. The stage design of Robert Wolin featured a two-story structure with round arches that recalls major buildings in Venice. Overhead lighting blocked off aspects of the structure at different parts of the play, making it seem as if the actors are sometimes in an interior space. At the opening of the play between the battlements was a large rectangular blue cloth with a winged lion on it, the symbolic icon for St. Mark in Venice. The image is adapted from one on St. Mark's Basilica. (5) Whether intentional or not, the image is rich with symbolic possibilities. Perhaps the wings on the cloth represent the dove-like Desdemona and the lion Othello; alternately, the unnatural creature could be an emblem of Iago's denial of a stable essence ("I am not what I am," as he puts it in 1.1.67), or a representation of Othello's bifurcated identity as Christian Venetian and Muslim Turk, as he articulates in his suicide speech (5.2.361-66).

The costuming design by Elizabeth Novak was generally late-Victorian, although the puttees worn by the soldiers on Cyprus seemed more like World War I vintage. Especially in light of their red, white, and blue uniforms, the soldiers conjured up images of colonialism, since Venice and Turkey both desire to have Cyprus as a colony. Moreover, Othello is a successful colonial who has risen to the powerful position of general and Christian defender of Venice, a prominent Italian city-state in the Renaissance whose population was diverse because of its international commerce, but whose patrician governing body zealously guarded matters of citizenship. (6) When Othello executes "the malignant and turban'd Turk" who has "traduc'd the state" (5.2.363-64), he does so with an Oriental scimitar. Othello's garb and Desdemona's dresses are color coded to suit the action of the play. Desdemona first appears in a yellow dress with green vines as decoration; in the middle of the play she appears in earthy tan clothing, and at the end in white. Othello is gradually stripped of his uniform in the process of losing his occupation and honor. His costume changes from the red, white, and blue of a Venetian soldier, to beige, and finally to white buttoned linen to mirror Desdemona in Act 5. This final coincidence of color suggests Othello's deluded aspirations to the roles of confessor and judge, as well as Desdemona's martyred fulfillment as a christic figure. The lieutenant tabs of Cassio's uniform almost become a prop, as they are torn off by Othello in Act 2 after the drunken mutiny, are worn by lago later, and then histrionically torn off by him in the process of convincing Othello about his disinterested service to him. Othello's lamp in Act 5, scene 2 is tied to Othello's "Put out the light" (5.2.7-13) speech which foreshadows Desdemona's murder by a husband who is alternately confessor, judge, and executioner. (7) The prop links Desdemona's deeds of light and Iago's deeds of darkness. Of course, the handkerchief with strawberries and magic in the web is much on display as the ultimate test by Othello of Desdemona's veracity and honor. Since no person in the 750-seat Festival Stage is far from the stage, everyone can see the strawberry design as it is handled by Desdemona, Othello, Emilia, Iago, Cassio, and Bianca. It seems to test ethically every character as it passes from hand to hand.

Director Geoffrey Sherman has given Montgomery audiences a fine production of Othello. In this domestic tragedy, we feel the tearing of allegiance, loyalty, and love by their opposites. The demonic scope of Iago is reduced in this production, as the shame is evident on Iago's face in the final scene, and the focus on Othello's divided values is front and center. When listening to Othello's shift from faith in love to faith in Iago's contrived appearances, the audience aches, for we know that one can only have faith that one is loved; proof is really impossible. And when Othello, after listening to Iago's racist theories of behavior, utters to himself, "And yet how nature erring from itself..." (3.3.243), we recognize Othello's absorbed racism in his doubts about being loved, doubts that the audience from time to time shares. Better, like Desdemona, to have faith in love, even when she experiences curses, blows, and murder. The production is a triumph.

Craig Barrow and Bryan Adams Hampton, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

Notes

(1.) All references to the play text are from The Complete Works of Shakespeare, 6th ed., ed. David Bevington (New York: Longman, 2009).

(2.) While Lawrence Danson's Shakespeare's Dramatic Genres (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000) does a fine job describing the dramatic genres in Shakespeare's time, an older book, Robert Heilman's Tragedy and Melodrama (Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 1968), more clearly delineates tragedy and melodrama. According to Heilman, melodrama has victims and victimizers and features plots of intrigue, whereas tragedy explores the character of the hero through the divided, contradictory values that focus his error of choice, fall, and final recognition.

(3.) See Heilman, 3-31.

(4.) Tangentially, and despite Othello's exotic appearance, early modern English audiences would have been more accustomed to the household presence of black servants than earlier criticism has led us to believe. See Walter H. S. Lira, "Representing the Other: Othello, Colonialism, Discourse," The Upstart Crow XIII (1993): 57-78; see especially 71-75.

(5.) From where we were sitting, we could not see the entire image of the winged lion. Professor Susan Willis, the Alabama Shakespeare Festival Dramaturge, sent us this information.

(6.) See Ludivine-Julie Olard, "Venice-Babylon: Foreigners and Citizens in the Renaissance Period (14th-16th Centuries)," in Imaging frontiers, contesting identities, ed. Steven G. Ellis and Lud'a Klusakova (Pisa, Italy: Pisa University Press, 2007), 155-74.

(7.) Winifred M. T. Nowottny, "Justice and Love in Othello," Essays in Shakespearean Criticism, ed. James L. Calderwood and Harold E. Toliver (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1970), 459-472.