 | Othello |  |
"Damn her, lewd minx! O, damn her!
Come, go with me apart; I will withdraw.
To furnish me with some swift means of death
For the fair devil. Now art thou my lieutenant. Othello
I am your own for ever. Iago " Act III, scene iii
Written: 1604
Masterpiece Theatre ; 2002 (Film)
Starring :
Reviewed on : 2005-01-04 02:16:00 ; Reviewed by : Margarete Mandry
| Andrew Davies' adaptation of Shakespeare's Othello does something that has
perplexed readers for generations; he gives Iago a recognizable motive for
destroying the lives of Othello and Desdemona. In this case, he focuses our
attention on the thin line between love and hate.
Set in present day London, Davies has dispensed with Shakespeare's verse in order to focus our attention on the characters and Othello's tailspin into destruction. John Othello (played by Eamonn Walker and based on
Othello the Moor) is in the Metropolitan Police at New Scotland Yard. Ben
Jago (played by Christopher Eccleston and based on the character of Iago) is
his best friend and slightly senior in the force. Michael Cass (played by
Richard Coyle and based on Cassio) is a supordinate. Dessie (Desdemona,
played by Keeley Hawes) is Othello's one true love and her cousin Lulu
(Rachel Stirling playing Emilia, Iago's wife) is seduced by Jago and pumped
for information continuously. The whole is played against the backdrop of
racism in the police force, mirroring the 1993 case of Stephen Lawrence, a
black teen killed by a racist gang. The racism case the characters
investigate replaces the war between Cryprus & Turkey as a backdrop for the tragedy of Othello & Desdemona.
The most difficult thing in this play is to give Jago/Iago a plausible
motive for his vindictive behaviour. It's too simplistic to simply ascribe
his motive to psychopathy˜ the modern equivalent of 'some kids are just born
bad'. Instead, Davies has Jago/Iago passed over for promotion; his best
friend and protegee is promoted instead and the honors just keep coming,
even though it was Jago/Iago himself who cleared the way for promotion by
manipulating the media and getting the previous police commissioner ousted
in disgrace. Othello gets a new job, lots of respect, a lovely new wife who
adores him, and a seemingly golden life. Jago/Iago's love for his friend
begins to curdle. His pathology is also revealed as one who needs to be the
center of attention, the best at everything, a perfectionist, a
control-freak, and admired by all & sundry. Unbalanced to begin with,
Eccleston portrays him much like a serial-killer who seems plausible &
"normal" in general but is never far from the descent into hatred and
madness. And yet, he is never completely mad. He simply gives his latent
racism, envy and sexual jealousy free reign and gives in to his innermost
desires.
Othello, too, is sketchily drawn in the original play, changing very quickly
from complete trust in Desdemona's faithfulness, to murderous jealousy.
Eamonn Walker allows the viewer to see all the emotions play across his
features as he begins to distrust Dessie & Cass's friendship. In "loving not
wisely, but too well", the emphasis is put on loving too well, in a
possessive love that's bound to add badly. He evokes all the sickness and
paranoia of Browning's "My last Duchess" in which killing the popular and
well-liked wife was the only way to keep her all to himself. Similarly,
Othello does not want to share her, and with Jago egging him on and telling
him lies insinuating Dessie's infidelity, Othello's possessiveness becomes
paramount, with the inevitable outcome of her death.
Dessie is the weakest character. Almost colourless in Shakespeare's version,
Keeley Hawes has given her a very real problem: discovering that the man she
loves above all else, but doesn't know very well, has a deeper, darker side
to him. And like every battered woman, she returns to him even though she is
frightenend, because she believes the man she fell in love with is still
there somewhere. Her dilemma is very real and reinforces the idea that she
is unusual to begin with, having chosen Othello as her mate, but is in the
end, like any other woman in danger, helpless in the face of her husband's
paranoid delusions.
And after all that, when Othello is ruined, both politically and spiritally,
Jago's smile of triumph is sickening. He has destroyed the creature he
loves, but unlike Othello, he relishes that destruction and it does not
break him, but rather empowers him; he has captured another soul, and should
Othello only live only one more day, Jago will always own him in some way.
Jago was his mentor to begin with, and now he has created a murderer out of
his protegee, thus cementing his control over Othello.
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Sir John Gilbert, R.A.,
Othello and Iago
Reviews
|  | Schauspiel Frankfurt
April 17, 2009 |  | Northern Broadsides
March 11, 2009 |  | Royal Shakespeare Company at the Warwick Arts Centre
February 6, 2009 |  | Théâtre de l'Odéon
November 14, 2008 |  | Metropolitan Opera
February 22, 2008 |  | Chicago Shakespeare Theatre
February 13, 2008 |  | Stratford Festival of Canada
August 4, 2007 |  | Boston Theatre Works in BCA Plaza Theatre
March 2006 |  | Ankara Devlet Opera ve Balesi
November 16, 2005 |  | Oyun Atölyesi
March 14, 2005 |  | Lions Gate Films
2004 |  | Lyric Opera of Chicago
2002 |  | Masterpiece Theatre
2002 |  | Tim Blake Nelson
2001 |  | Royal Shakespeare Company
January 6, 2000 |
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