By Darby Turnbull
Deconstructed adaptations of classical works, particularly Shakespeare, can be a welcome boon. In addition to a reduced run time, they can be thematically resonant and sharply emphasise moments in the text that might be particularly enlightening. Essential Theatre’s 2016 production of Julius Caesar for example was a brisk 60 minutes and is still one of my favourite presentations of the play.
Tanya Gerstle’s Othello for Melbourne Shakespeare Company currently running at 45 downstairs has been whittled down to 90 minutes from my perspective has less success in its dramaturgical choices. Othello is a famously contentious choice for companies, as one of Shakespeare’s few canonically BIPOC characters it usually means an active engagement with how they engage with race. It’s only in the last few decades that it’s become socially unacceptable for white actors to play the role by darkening their own skin and adopting mannerisms filtered through their own racial bias (given the ever-lowering casting standards we’re probably not that far away from white actors making a bid to take on the role again). Last year I was fortunate enough to see it done at the Globe Theatre where it explored systematic racism in the Metropolitan Police and was very free with the text, even going so far as to change the fates of Othello and Iago. Iqbal Khan’s 2015 production for the Royal Shakespeare Company cast Lucian Msamati who is English Tanzanian as Iago that very consciously elected to explore both its leading men’ s relationships to the racism depicted in the play and how the perspective changed based on Iago’s willingness to exploit it both for and against his own interests. Other productions seem to circumvent it all together. Which is to say it’s a piece that lends itself to reinterpretation; it can be a racist platform for people’s aversion to miscegenation to a chilling insight into a man so warped by systematic and cultural racism that it destroys him and everyone around him.
It’s also one of Shakespeare’s most potent depictions of toxic misogyny and sexual jealousy; it ends with two men murdering their wives due to their own warped view of their own entitlement. Othello is a well-respected, noble Army General whose exceptional skills have led the Venetian ruling class to slightly overlook his race given how much service is done to the state. In very quick succession Othello unwittingly sets in motion his own downfall by first promoting to his Lieutenant Michael Cassio, a bookish and inexperienced soldier over veteran Iago and marrying Desdemona, the daughter of a White Senator. Iago is so consumed with bitterness that he drives Othello to believe that Desdemona has been unfaithful with Cassio, his own wife Emilia, a loyal attendant to Desdemona is made an unwitting accomplice when she gives Iago a handkerchief, a gift from Othello to his wife that is used to implicate Desdemona and Cassio in a tryst.
Gerstle’s production strips the production down to a cast of 5 and aims to ‘strip it bare’ to explore men ‘scared, shattered and untethered. Imprinted images explode in their brains’. Alas, what this approach does is emphasise the limitations in the productions’ handling of the text. Firstly, Gerstle has gotten rid of the entire first act and most of the second thereby stripping the play of much of its context. We do not see Desdemona defying her father to marry Othello, we don’t see Venice and its political landscape, Othello doesn’t get his famous speech about how he wooed his wife and thus woo the audience in turn. We don’t get the contrast of the Soldiers in Venice before being stationed in Cyprus to fight a battle that doesn’t go ahead, leaving them all tense, bored and far from home. We don’t get to see just how much Desdemona gives up in marrying Othello and joining him on duty in a country where she has no allies and more importantly where Iago has far more scope to manipulate those around him because he’s exclusively amongst people who trust and respect him.
Gerstle does provide an intriguing prologue in which we actually see Iago and Othello in battle, Iago murders an unarmed civilian woman, and Othello takes her handkerchief which he later gives to Desdemona (changed from the text where it was his mother’s). It’s effective in showing us immediately what kind of man Iago is and the system that enables him but it’s not equal to the importance of Act 1 setting up the Socio-political context of the world these characters inhabit.
The five-member ensemble could serve to heighten the isolation of the characters and really dig deep into the interpersonal dynamics, but perhaps it’s due to the vision or the amount of rehearsal but they still seem to be figuring out how to work within the truncated version of the text.
Christopher Kirby and Dushan Phillips reunite after playing Malcom X and Martin Luther King in Tanya Gerstle’s production of The Meeting but without much of the magnetism that made them both so entrancing in that production. Dushan Phillips is working towards a dynamic Iago, using his immense personal charm to conceal a disturbing amount of malevolence. His Iago is an inveterate shit stirrer; he punctuates his insinuations with crude gestures and seems genuinely amused that he’s actually being believed as his lies get more obscene. The malignancy of his misogyny in the final scene is truly repellent, but we’re robbed of his final moments when Iago declares that he’ll offer no explanation as to why he did what he did. In this production he merely runs off stage.
Christopher Kirby’s Othello suffers most from the elimination of the opening Act, he’s already on the back foot but has all the makings of a memorable take on the title role that haven’t quite cohered yet. Sensual and often vulnerable he’s a virile and commanding physical presence but his delivery is often stilted, showing the soldier but he frequently stays ‘rude in speech’ rather than letting the musicality of the verse sit alongside it to enhance the characters emotional arc. This Othello isn’t given the scope to exist within a society or a history; he isn’t given the nobility of spirit that commands people’s respect that’s ultimately contaminated by Iago.
Tanya Schneider is refreshingly a little closer to Kirby in age (I think) as Desdemona’s are generally cast decades younger than their Othello’s and I wish this dynamic had been explored with more nuance because there’s really something there, especially contrasted with a younger actor taking on Emilia, played by Lucy Ansell. Desdemona has benefited from some very talented actresses in the last few years working overtime to give the character more dimension and really emphasise her agency and Schneider is no exception; she’s a more worldly, confident Desdemona and she’s extremely well equipped at playing the all too gradual realisation in just how dire her marriage has become.
Emilia by contrast has the potential to dominate the final moments of the play not least with her famous speech about the rights of wives and the monumental courage she displays in unbraiding Othello’s murder of his wife and exposing the machinations of her husband and Lucy Ansell attacks these moments with gusto and is one of the productions’ most compelling features. Her instincts are often at odds with some baffling choices; Emilia stealing the handkerchief is somewhat bizarrely done to compensate for her and Iago’s childlessness. An interesting internal motivation, but the decision to have her literally cradle the handkerchief (twice) like an infant borders on camp. Ansell’s presence with the dignity and ultimate ferocity she imbues Emilia with is compelling enough, especially given she’s younger than how the role is usually cast.
Matt Furlani rounds out the cast as a nervier and more unhinged Cassio than is generally played. Given how much of the text is cut we aren’t privy to much of Cassio before he gets destructively drunk and disgraced. The way he’s styled and directed in the role we’re left to ask ourselves why this Cassio was promoted over Iago? Less so than Emilia but Cassio is a character with potential to make a strong impact; actors like Tom Hiddleston and Jonathan Bailey had early career breakthroughs in the role and I believe more could have been done for Furlani’s Cassio to flourish.
Ultimately the creative choices and dramaturgy inhibit rather than enhance the performances and the text. All urgency and momentum are undercut by a soporific soundscape (Jack Burmeister) that undercuts the energy of the actors and determines a laboured tone to the scenes rather than let them develop organically.
Callum Dale’s multi-level set and Samantha Hastings’ costumes each seem to be aiming for Gerstle’s vision of a more timeless atmosphere, but the costumes don’t offer much in the way of emphasising or revealing characteristics.
Othello as a one of Shakespeare’s more intimate tragedies is a very good fit for the 45 Downstairs theatre and there was great potential to explore up close the complexity of the play and the fallibility of the characters up close but despite a team filled with very intelligent creatives I felt this production still needs work for it to be equal to its potential.
