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.
...Nicholas Hytner's modern-dress production brings that banality to life… Here are two fine central performances… Rory Kinnear's Iago has mastered the art of saying much by not saying much, with silences speaking volumes… This Iago is no stereotypical pantomime villain but a man who has no moral compass whatsoever… Adrian Lester's Othello is quick to believe the worst of Desdemona and takes little persuading. It's a portrait of a man driven to physical torment by his suspicions… Othello marks ten years of Hytner at the helm of the National; it's an impressive adornment to an impressive reign, and is certain to become one of his must-see productions.
...It’s a gripping production of a tragedy that is also an intensely painful psychological thriller, and though the production lasts more than three hours, it never loosens its dramatic hold…. This Othello has all the hallmarks of Hytner at his best – it’s witty, agile, lucid and deeply felt… and the double-act between Lester’s Moor and Rory Kinnear’s Iago proves exceptional… Kinnear’s Iago initially seems like the salt of the earth, but you soon sense a resentment that lurches into paranoia. Lester rises magnificently to the challenge of the great poetry of the final act, conjuring a verbal symphony of loss, pain, guilt and grief.
...Hytner's brilliantly acted (both leads are stunning), acutely penetrating and deeply disturbing account of the play… Lester gives us a figure of such quietly natural authority and unforced charisma… Kinnear's Iago is a balding, faintly Cockney bar-room-bigot type, masquerading as a blokey you-get-what-it-says-on-the-tin merchant… Kinnear's performance may be wonderfully low-key, but you can sense how Iago's revealed “motives” are just a set of disguises… The wonder of Lester's performance is that it captures all the discordant voices – the harrowing inconsolable sobs of the man who knows he has destroyed, in Desdemona, his life's meaning… The production is an un-operatically terrifying take on the play and no easy debunking exercise. It stands as a properly provocative vindication of a decade of modernised Shakespeare at Hytner's National Theatre.
...Rory Kinnear here gives a stunning study of a sociopath whose destructive tendencies have hitherto been held in check only by soldierly discipline. It's a performance full of revealing moments… Lester has all the qualities you look for in Othello: charisma, presence, a voice. He is superb in the senate scene… It is a high-class production… Everything about the production is clear, clever and comprehensible. But, partly because it denies Othello something of his musical grandeur and makes Iago's diseased mind the main event, I'd say it scores a successful victory on points without delivering the final, knockout blow.
Libby Purves The Times ★★★★★
...The 25-year-old Olivia Vinall shines as Desdemona. She is truthful, blithe and touching… Lester’s Othello has all the dignified vulnerability one could wish... Over at his laptop, Kinnear’s watchful Iago twitches with the energy of envious hatred. Both men are superb; emotional powerhouses, lyrically confident. But what makes this production so fine are the myriad smaller perfections… Moments shine: Desdemona flies to Othello, almost ripping his flak jacket off, Jonathan Bailey writhes in Cassio’s disgraced misery, the Willow song echoes, broken, off the grey concrete. Emilia is all jokey, soldierly pragmatism about sex and men, but erupts brilliantly in a final, honest fury at the death of innocence. Your breath stops. Pitiful, wondrous pitiful.
Though it lasts well over three hours, Sir Nicholas Hytner’s inventive Othello zips along… Adrian Lester’s powerfully-built… a convincing commander, even if his petting of Desdemona in front of the men is overdone… A slimmed-down Rory Kinnear may convince us that Iago is a crafty and cold-hearted man. But is he evil? If that intense vileness is elusive it may be because… the extremity of Iago’s nastiness demands a little more caricature – a little more brooding, jaw-clenching villainy – if our minds are to compute it… That is the sole, slight flaw in an otherwise fine performance from Mr Kinnear who cements his reputation as one of our stage’s stars.
Adrian Lester is a charismatic, dignified Othello. When jealousy grips him he seethes with the sort of fury that causes him to flip a table with a single flick of his wrist. But he brings a delicate grace to the role, and the crispness of his verse-speaking is admirable – a reminder, as if we needed one, of his great quality as a Shakespearean actor. Rory Kinnear is mesmerising as Iago, the "honest" officer who is in fact Othello's nemesis... In Nicholas Hytner's production, which is set in the present, the scenes between the leads always fizz... What’s missing is grandeur - a sense of real nobility and exoticism. The modern setting reveals the play’s paranoid mood and uncomfortable humour but muffles the tragedy a little.
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 production captures the tedium of army life, the testosterone-driven bantering and heavy drinking.
The central focus of any Othello is going to be the pivotal relationship between Othello and Iago. Here are two fine central performances: Adrian Lester's Othello is quick to believe the worst of Desdemona and takes little persuading. It's a portrait of a man driven to physical torment by his suspicions, scarcely able to breathe as he contemplates Desdemona's supposed infidelity.
Rory Kinnear's Iago has mastered the art of saying much by not saying much, with silences speaking volumes. His mumbled "I like that not," is scarcely audible, yet Othello picks up on it, as if he's willing to believe it. This Iago is no stereotypical pantomime villain but a man who has no moral compass whatsoever.
By the end, Lester's Othello is almost physically wrecked by the destruction of his marriage, frantically scrutinising the sheets for signs of Desdemona's guilt.
Olivia Vinall & Adrian Lester
Olivia Vinall's Desdemona steps into this setting with a touching naivity. Quick to comfort Cassio, she provides easy evidence to Othello of her infidelity and her light flirtatiousness contrasts with the heavy regime of army life.
There are some excellent supporting performances, notably from William Chubb's Brabantio, a spiteful, patrician racist; Lyndsey Marshal's sympathetic Emilia; and Jonathan Bailey's smoothly ambitious Cassio. Plaudits too for Vicki Mortimer's set which allows the action to switch easily from washroom to bedroom.
Othello marks ten years of Hytner at the helm of the National; it's an impressive adornment to an impressive reign, and is certain to become one of his must-see productions.
