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:

24 April 2013

The tragedy of Othello is, at heart, a domestic tragedy. For all the trappings of state and the exalted positions of the protoganists, it's the mundane story of people brought low by the jealousies that lie in all of us. Nicholas Hytner's modern-dress production brings that banality to life.

The action takes place in the most prosaic of settings: a man's toilet, where Othello spies on Cassio and Iago, a mess room and a bleak office. Desdemona dies, not in a chamber befitting the wife of a general, but in a cheaply furnished, harshly-lit bedroom.

One of the key aspects of Othello is that he is a general, steeped in militarism, a man who knows little outside the army. It's perhaps the artificial nature of camp life. Hytner's product...

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Latest User Review

Robert - 3 May 2013:

Scores top marks in every category for me. Superb intelligent acting, Adrian Lester as an Othello punching above his weight and going to pieces under pressure. Rory Kinnear acting his socks off with a completely coherent portrayal of a nasty little man who has everyone fooled and just keeps pushing Othello that little bit further. Lyndsay Marshal putting all her heart into Emilia and Olivia Vinall entirely convincing as the naive and baffled Desdemona. As a person who generally dislikes "modern dress" I was bowled over by the present-day military setting - you could subtitle the play "An Army Base Tragedy. An earlier reviewer complains about the setting which "seems to take place in a cramped premier inn room." For me the clever set and design showed up lots of earlier productions, where fancy Venetian costumes and lavish velvet-hung rooms now seem to me to have been a rather lazy approach. This reviewer saw Laurence Olivier and Frank Finlay in "Othello" [twice] and believe me Adrian Lester and Rory Kinnear are worthy successors. An "Othello" for our time. ...

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