Lantern Theater's "Othello'

Othello well served, Iago sold short

ROBERT ZALLER

At the beginning of the final, fatal bedroom scene, Shakespeare’s Othello comes onstage musing, “It is the cause, it is the cause.” But which cause? And in what sense? Othello has been a man of causes; he has served the state of Venice in many. Is he thinking of Desdemona’s slaying as a cause, too, a duty to accomplish? Or is he thinking of her supposed infidelity as the cause that will lead him to act? Or, perhaps, of the jealousy that drives him, which he can no longer resist?

Shakespeare tells us nothing further, and the lines drift away hauntingly, like the bell that commences an awful rite. In a play full of dark sayings, these lines are perhaps the most mysterious of all.

Othello kills out of jealousy, we know; but that explains nothing. Shakespeare calls jealousy the green-eyed monster that, self-begotten, feeds on itself: in other words, a force independent of us that, once stirred to life, knows no bounds and cannot be conquered or appeased. This is what the Greeks understood as a passion and saw as the root of tragedy. It is both within us— there is no more intimate experience— and beyond us, as an affliction that alienates us completely from ourselves.

A race-conscious society

Othello is especially susceptible to this passion. Dark-skinned without, he will always be a suspect outsider even to the state that entrusts its most sensitive missions to him. His fair Desdemona represents the essential candor of his nature, yet she must be won from her father by subterfuge, since in so closed and race-conscious a society she would never be freely granted. Othello loves her as he loves the knowledge of his own self-worth, and when her integrity is challenged it is the inner citadel of his self that is breached.

The Moor of Venice is a complex character, largely hidden even to himself. Introspection is not his forte, and for good reason: A man who wins great place in the world against all odds cannot afford to question himself too closely.

Iago, on the other hand, is much given to self-reflection. He offers us as many reasons for his malice as we could wish; he is a Freudian delight. And yet he is finally dark to himself as well, and his motiveless malignity— a will to evil— makes him the most inscrutable character in the history of the theater.

An underling with a grudge

The way a director construes these two characters and shapes their interaction will determine the fate of any Othello. Charles McMahon, the Lantern’s founder and resident director, sees Othello as a man undone by the very powers of imagination that make him a capable leader. His Iago, however, is essentially an underling with a grudge who wants to make mischief— “a fairly modest plot for revenge,” as the liner notes say— but who is catapulted into a “far more ambitious and destructive course of action” by his unexpected success.

I think this interpretation sells Iago far short. McMahon sees him as a “modern” character who could easily be “running a seminar in power politics in the workplace.” But Shakespeare was working from the contemporary tradition of the stage Machiavel, with its connection to the Vice figures of medieval drama and the Satanic forces they represented. Iago is an intriguingly secularized version of these stock figures, and he raises for us the always-vexed question of Shakespeare’s personal skepticism. But he resonates with a sense of evil as a real and active presence in the world. If Othello comes to personify jealousy, a force larger than himself, so Iago’s character seems to have mysterious commerce with the Devil, even though he exhibits no conscious connection to him.

A telling moment

In Frank X, who did a memorable Lear at the Lantern in 2001, McMahon has a performer of commanding presence, emotional range and vocal power. X’s Othello starts modestly, as if his authority were too established to need emphasis; even “Put up thy swords” is almost a throwaway line. But as Iago’s hook sinks deeper, his agony rises toweringly.

There is a very telling moment when Othello falls into an epileptic fit, obviously provoked by his distress, and Iago triumphantly bestrides his prostrate form. It is a nicely judged piece of stage work, as commander and subaltern exchange places in a manner almost sexually charged. When Othello next appears, however, the stage is filled with his pain, and it remains there until the play’s end. We see something more, too, that Mr. X has not revealed until then: Othello’s dramatic-— and self-dramatizing—character. Even in his fall, he reminds his captors that he has “done the state some service,” and asks to be memorialized. It is an indelible performance.

Iago’s mysterious wickedness

Peter Pryor, the crisp, matter-of-fact villain of the Lantern’s Richard III two years back, takes a similar approach with Iago. In this respect he comports readily with McMahon’s notion of Iago as a man who lives easily on his own surface even as he manipulates the depths of others. This approach helps make for a fast-paced and energetic Othello, if not a very probing one. Iago deserves better, for his wickedness, in its steely glitter, is no less remarkable than Othello’s grandeur, and more deeply mysterious.

When, with the utter finality of his “Demand me nothing,” Iago refuses to explain himself— leaving forever unresolved the question of whether he can do so— McMahon has him on the ground, not a Lucifer in chains but a common miscreant on his knees. The line is lost, and so is something of vital importance to the play.

A daredevil Desdemona

Othello’s other great role is that of Desdemona. Mary McCool plays Desdemona broadly, emphasizing the daredevil who flouts convention to marry the Moor. This is a change of pace from the usual reading, and, if a bit disconcerting and even hoydenish at first, it has some justification in the text. There is pathos and restraint in the death scene, and it is fitting that this Desdemona puts up a violent struggle for her life: She has obviously enjoyed living it.

Sarah Sanford deserves particular commendation for her forthright Emilia (and sluttish Bianca), while Anthony Lawton is a hectic Roderigo and Seth Reichgott a suitably grave Lodovico.

McMahon has a clear conception of the Othello he wants, and his performers have executed it. There is verve and physicality to the production, starting with a carnival scene that suggests the secret corruptions of Venice. The blocking is crisp and balletic, and there are striking visual compositions throughout. The limitations of the Lantern’s space prove a spur to the imagination rather than an impediment, and the result is a continuing, swift-moving pleasure for the eye. As for the ear (a few flattish accents apart), Shakespeare takes care of all requirements.

This might have been a remarkable Othello, and Frank X’s realization of the title role alone makes it worth seeing. I need more in my Iago, though— and so, I think, does the Bard. To paraphrase another of his great rogues, God stand up for villains.



To read another review by Jim Rutter, click here.