Othello

Synopsis

Othello, a Moor, falls in love with Desdemona but is broken by jealousy falsely encouraged. Shakespeare's most human play sets delicacy and power, trust and jealousy, love and hate, good and evil in stark and tragic opposition. Powerless in the face of their own self destructive instincts, the characters are caught on a downward spiral towards inevitable tragedy.

Our Review:

9 February 2009

I’ve always found Othello a difficult play to watch. It’s not just the murderous domestic violence - it’s the melodramatic nature of elements of the play. Wife murder (x2), pure evil, war, extreme jealousy, violence, saintly victims, suicide, black /white, chaos/rationale. The fact a highly respected general turns on a penny into a jealous monster who kills his wife over a misplaced handkerchief can make this play a bit lacking in psychological realism. This often goes two ways: a production comes across as a bit OTT and daft, or just unbelievable.

Fortunately, Kathryn Hunter’s production doesn’t suffer either of these potential pitfalls.  Her expert, insightful direction is coupled with an appealing, charismatic cast. Hunter’s production has been awaited with baited breath as the first of her collaborations with the RSC as associate artist; and this show has a lot of the best of Hunter stamped on it: excellen...

Read more of the review

Latest User Review

Monica Holland - 20 February 2009:

I thought this was a very good and thoughtful production. Michael Gould was fantastic as Iago. However, he had the stand-out performance, rather than Patrice Naiambana, who only seemed to shine in his scenes with Natalia Tena. Overall though, I thought it was very well put together, especially the music....

Read more and add your own review