Othello - National Theatre

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...?

Was that also because she never seems to be able to open her jaw much when she’s speaking? It’s like trying to hear somebody muttering behind you in the queue at Gregg’s with her sometimes!

To echo others, Paul Hilton is a considerable success (as Iago), though he carries too much of the production.

Giles Terera seems to have quite the following. Heartening to see the building busy and buzzing again.

From the photos, it looks like at least some of the actors are wearing microphones

Is that really the case?

Yes I was in front row and they are 

Reviews seem to be very strong but I didn’t find it nearly as interesting, enjoyable or radical as most of the press seem to. Not a patch on the relatively recent Adrian Lester / Rory Kinnear version in the same building for my money.

As many have said it’s Paul Hilton’s show and he’s doing fine work, and aside from Roderigo (who was doing some very shouty hand-gesture-y acting) most of the other performances are good, especially Tanya Franks as Emilia who comes closest of anyone to awakening some proper emotion in the audience.

But the production is so full of sound and light it’s hard to care. The sound booms and the lights jitter so it plays like a horror film… until it doesn’t and the final bedroom scene seems like they ran out of technical rehearsal time. This contrast of mega concept, followed by stark plain performance on a basically bare stage strangely has the affect of making all the deaths seem especially silly - just lots of people running at each other with knives and then falling neatly in position in an almost parody of the end of a Shakespearean tragedy.

So, not for me, ultimately, but clearly many found something in it that passed me by.

The acoustics are awful in both Olivier and Lyttleton but no excuse for mikes. Imo the actors should be able to sort it out. 

Absolutely. If you are a properly trained actor then projection really should not be an issue. If your training is lacking, get to a vocal coach and get sorted.

If your sound designer is intent on a soundscape that drowns out natural voices, tell them to change the sound balance or get a new designer.

Stoppard had them for that trilogy faux Chekhov thing. The one with video screens…I don’t think there was much miking before then. In the early days i learnt not to go into the circle as the sound is so poor there, not the actors’ fault I don’t think. And in the very early days at the old RSC theatre in Stratford you could hear a whisper in the last row of the Gods where you would mostly find me. And right at the top of the ROH you can hear everything clearly. There is a reason theatres were built like they were. Making the Olivier an amphitheatre was a mistake. 

I think it was presumably Nunn rather than Stoppard going for mikes!  It was certainly under Trevor Nunn that miking became normal.

I thought it a fine production with generally excellent performances. However, there was one cut that bothered me.  At the end of the play, Othello speaks the lines: "I have done the state some service, and they know't. No more of that." The lines following are cut from this production. I'm particularly concerned by these cut lines:

"...in Aleppo once, where a malignant and a turban'd Turk beat a Venetian and traduced the state, I took by the throat the circumcised dog, and smote, him, thus."

That cut line gives us the information that Othello is a Black African and not actually a Moor. A Moor would not have used the term "circumcised dog," presumably being circumcised himself.

The term "Moor" was used loosely in Shakespeare's time, to refer to any people of colour; the cut line gives us more accurate information about Othello.