Othello - National Theatre

Dyer comes across as somewhat arrogant in that interview:

"Dyer’s view is that those white directors of previous explorations of Othello “didn’t feel comfortable with being able to articulate the black experience through the piece and so instead they’d just avoid it."

That's all white directors of Othello ever apparently.

"The production, co-starring Paul Hilton (Slow Horses) as Othello’s nemesis, Iago, will redress an imbalance in many previous versions that has, seemingly, shifted more attention to the scheming Iago. “It’s not called Iago, it’s called Othello,” Dyer insisted."

""He was scathing about a famous 1990 production directed by Trevor Nunn for the Royal Shakespeare Company starring, the great baritone and actor, Willard White as the Moor and Ian McKellen as Iago. There’s also a video version of it. Dyer told Deadline: “I watched that and Ian McKellen is amazing, there’s no two ways about it, but my feeling is that we are allowed to enjoy that performance more readily than Othello’s.”

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Of course on that basis directors should note that it's called The Merchant of Venice, not Shylock.

Feels a little too soon to me for the National to be doing Othello AGAIN - it wasn't that long since Adrian Lester/Rory Kinnear...do we really need another one?

The focus on Iago is in the text, not the direction. 

The Tempest would have been a more creative and less obvious choice, there have been overtly colonial interpretations of it - Michael Boyd's for example - but not many. 

On this general topic, there was an RSC Julius Caesar set in Africa with a near all-black cast but the director was Greg Doran - that struck me even at the time as being problematic, but apparently Doran didn't see it that way. He probably would now of course. 

At least the production itself will be traditional, old-fashioned even:

“I want to make it thrilling, make it feel like a movie experience. I don’t want it to necessarily be held in just an old-fashioned theater form. I do hope I can make it feel more impactful by using other techniques, such as video screens, than just using the words.”

Video screens. Yawn. 


 

I don't dislike video screens per se. I thought they worked in the recent Donmar Henry V for example, even though I didn't love the production. But it's worrying that the deputy AD of the National Theatre thinks theatre should 'feel like a movie experience.' It suggests a lack of confidence in theatre to be thrilling and impactful in itself. But otherwise I'm looking forward to seeing what he brings to this, and also to seeing Giles Terera as Othello.

This is the first Shakespeare play he will have directed. It is a tough task. Let's see. Macbeth in the Olivier was the first Shakespeare Rufus Norris had directed and look how poor that was. 

You can make theatre a movie experience but it needs more than a few video screens - Robert Icke's "Red Barn" was a very good example. It is an interesting view though, Michael Boyd ripped out the proscenium stage at the RST and put in a thrust stage specifically because he didn't want theatre to be a movie experience with the audience passive observers distanced from the action "If you want to sit in the dark go to the movies" he dismissively said to people who objected. 

Hey - is anyone planning on seeing this later this week? Had a browse for tickets and was surprised to see how much has already gone in the first few weeks of the run - even the £89 tickets! This is definitely on my list to see but curious to see how come it’s selling so well, not that that’s a bad thing of course. Hope to see it before Christmas myself

Indeed, my phone seems to be unfamiliar with Shakespeare. Thanks for this

I'm going on Thursday- got one of the £20 front row when it went on sale. Looking forward!

Merged

I agree with you. [also Italian here, Shakespeare is such a struggle for me too!] in that I thought Iago was the highlight of this production. I liked that they added details like the fact (spoiler alert) that he is a violent/coercive abuser. I'd never seen the play before and read the synopsis ahead. From what it says on the RSC website, the epilepsy is in the original too. 
I quite liked the monochrome staging and costumes. As much as I love Giles Terera and would go see him in anything, he was not as amazing as I was expecting. I did not think there was much chemistry between his Othello and Desdemona. I liked how he interpreted Othello's descent into madness- I really liked the scene with Iago when the latter starts to plant the seed of jealousy. However, I did not feel much despair in his performance as the suspicions and madness take over, and especially at the point when he kills Desdemona. Has this was just the second preview, I wonder if he's still warming up to the role.

Two of the most revered Shakespeare directors of our era, John Barton and Trevor Nunn, directed productions where they had added literally hundreds of lines they had written themselves. I suppose it depends on the intention.

The production as reviewed here doesn’t sound even in the slightest bit innovative in any way. Quite surprising.

On the motivation of Emilia, the Hytner production made her a soldier too and so implied she was literally subordinate to Iago - that was very effective.

I don’t think Hall ever wrote his own material for Shakespeare though he directed Barton’s “Wars of the Roses” Henry VI version where I think only one of the many death scenes was actually written by Shakespeare. Barton used to routinely insert his own text into the plays he directed. The Trevor Nunn example I was thinking of was Timon of Athens where he cut hundreds of lines and added hundreds of his own to try to make sense of it and (of course) no one noticed least of all the critics.

I think it is certain I’ve seen more productions of Othello than Clint Dyer. What he claims to be innovative about his production doesn’t strike me as being so. For example I’ve seen productions where the Venetian establishment who are happy to use Othello’s military skills still have a plainly racist attitude towards him as a person.

Saw this tonight. Not the most heartbreaking Othello I've seen, but certainly one of the scariest.

Some spoilers follow. . .

This is not a straightforward reading of the play at all, and is probably better for it, from my perspective, as the straightforward Chiwetel Ejiofor-Kelly Reilly-Ewan McGregor Othello was so powerful and intimate, and I cried so many tears for how damn noble Ejiofor was, that anything straightforward would simply never match up to that, for me!

Here, I cried no tears at all, and just found myself screaming under my breath, "Get out, get out!" as this felt like a cousin to that recent horror film classic, whereby "Get out" is the one principal emotion the audience feels lol! Clint Dyer clues us in to just how hopeless this Othello's position is, when, even at the zenith of his importance and influence, Martin Marquez's Duke of Venice recoils from the prospect of even shaking Othello's hand.

Not an Iago anyone could love, at any point, Paul Hilton's magnificently distinctive blackshirted Iago is more of a conductor of other people's emotions, than someone who wins them over with charm, more of a ferocious Nuremberg rallies type orchestrator of people's worst impulses, putting me in mind of an Oswald Mosley type, who Dyer allows to enchant most of the ensemble with his malevolent charisma.

The ensemble mostly sit around, when not in the scenes, shrouded in the semi-darkness of omnipresent chiaroscuro lighting, acting as a Greek chorus of hatred against Othello, frequently physically conducted by Hilton into threatening Othello, like Doctor Who's angels, who creep up behind you if ever you shut your eyes.

Giles Terera's Othello is, therefore, necessarily less of a great noble General and more of an everyman caught up in a horror movie, whereby, like in Polanski's Rosemary's Baby, societal forces are working in concert against him, with Hilton in the role of the Devil. And Terera certainly made me feel the horror and helplessness of discovering that everyone really is against you.

That something fascist and diabolical may be going on is clued in by everyone having numbers on their arms, in addition to the forbidding chiaroscuro atmosphere. At one point I thought Hilton's arm number might be "813," the angel number for "I love you," which could cement his role as Lucifer, the angel of light lol. But I probably remember that wrongly.

Anyhow, this Othello doesn't always cohere, due to its being so directed, which doesn't always jibe with the uber-emotional tragedy Shakespeare was going for, but the way it conjures up a sense of some of the greatest horrors of the past, and possibly the future, given how Trumpian authoritarianism and bigotry plays to our worst impulses, I felt it was pretty scary, and Hilton won't be forgotten.

4 stars from me.

As long as you read the synopsis beforehand (maybe the whole thing if you have time!) you will be fine - you won't understand everything they say but you'll get the gist. Not sure it is as enjoyable as modern plays where you can just relax, rather than having to concentrate hard to understand. Only one by S I have genuinely enjoyed was the recent NT production of Much Ado About Nothing, maybe because it was a comedy with fewer complicated monologues...?