 | 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
Théâtre de l'Odéon ; November 14, 2008 Paris, France
Director : Eric Vigner ; Starring : Bénédicte Cerutti, Samir Guesmi
Reviewed on : 2008-11-19 11:53:46 ; Reviewed by : Laura Cappelle
| French directors seem to be facing a challenge when it comes to the Bard.Genre remains a reassuring regulation in the land of Racine and Molière, the two historic antagonists; what happens then when a supposed classic embraces both light and shadow, tragedy and comedy, at times in the course of a line? Some simply choose not to listen to the text, subsuming it instead to mighty Concepts. Such was the case with the Othello Eric Vigner directed at the Théâtre de l'Odéon, in Paris – a production that evens out the sharp wit of the play and relies far too much on fashionable packaging.
The story is thus set on a stage that is almost bare, an expected feature of modern French productions. The action starts with Iago and Othello seated around an austere table, the Moor in the dark, a large, movable staircase behind them. Large panels later filled the stage in geometric fashion, lit from behind, looking like giant braille inscriptions; as often happens for fear of looking old-fashioned or too specific, the play simply happened nowhere, against a supposedly appealing futuristic background. Desdemona had to do without a bed; a moving floor, on the other hand, allowed the actors to circle aimlessly on the stage. The lighting, though, nicely managed to create shimmering reflections on the floor (a quiet hint on water), while a second, white staircase contrasted the black one, providing some insight into the structure of the play.
Unfortunately, such contrast was absent from Eric Vigner's work with the cast. The main problem did seem to lie with poor direction, since the text suffered from ill-advised diction on all sides. Every other sentence failed to fall down to its conclusion, sounding instead like an implicit question; the humour was meanwhile lost on the audience. The tone wound up ranging from from tragic to grotesque, a sameness that quickly grew heavy-handed. This is Shakespeare Marguerite Duras-style – a confessed influence, she wrote few plays, and her serious, emphatic manner makes them chants rather than true theatrical material. In her wake, director Eric Vigner goes to great lengths to avoid having actors looking like they feel what their characters are supposed to feel. No wonder then everyone on stage is at sea, abandoned somewhere between Cyprus and Venice.
One of the ideas of the production was to cast a Frenchman of Maghrebin origin as the Moor , so as to create an echo between the play and French racial issues, but once again the concept hardly took Shakespeare into account. As a result, there is no longer the strong visual contrast between black and white that underlines in a deceptively simple way the issues at heart; casting Bénédicte Cerutti as Desdemona didn't help, as her sharp features and tanned complexion bring her too close to Samir Guesmi, her Othello. As it is, the main couple is unable to portray two extremes brought together by love; their relationship resembles that of brothers and sisters who have always shared a world. Further discussing performances is uneasy, as acute direction might have made much difference, but Samir Guesmi lacked accuracy and stature as Othello, while Bénédicte Cerutti, dressed in black, sporting fur, was so wrong she can hardly be blamed.
The other central duet, Iago and Othello, worked far better in terms of the needed contrast. Iago and Roderigo looked their parts, although they were both portrayed with unbearably squeaky voices. They embodied grotesque; Iago, in particular, could have been a concealing monk, dressed as he was in a shiny white unitard. Michel Fau has been noted for his risk-taking presence in the plays of Olivier Py, artistic director of the Théâtre de l'Odéon, but casting him as Iago is far-fetched. The wooden, grandiloquent manner of speaking among the cast was unconvincing overall, as it fails to get the audience to warm up to the characters. Jutta Johanna Weiss, as Emilia, spoke so brutally she seemed to be treading on her lines' toes. Thomas Scimena, who wisely reverted to his long flowing locks to communicate, turned in a "hair-raising" performance as Cassio.
By the time he becomes Governor, though, the ship has long fallen apart. That new production is reminiscent of the failed King Lear the Théâtre de l'Odéon premiered a few years back – the tendency to go with an all-embracing vision that overlooks the text is their common pitfall. Despite a fine new French version of the text by Rémi de Vos, this production of Othello feels wrong in a theatre so traditionally European; without precise direction, too much has clearly got lost in translation.
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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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