On the 2013 Othello, dir. Nicholas Hytner and ft. Adrian Lester

 

Othello is the Shakespeare play I have seen the most after King Lear: the 2019 production by Nigel Shawn Williams (with Michael Blake as Othello and Gordon S. Miller as Iago), the 1990 production by Trevor Nunn (with Willard White and Ian McKellen), the BBC production from 1981 by Jonathan Miller (with Anthony Hopkins and Bob Hoskins), and now this one. 

What is it about Othello that fascinates me so? Let me think. Some people reduce it to a play about jealousy. Some, to domestic violence and honour killing. Some, to race and racism. Of course it’s not so simple. I suppose I’m obsessed with the play partly because of my fascination with Iago’s malignity and manipulation, partly because of the character of Emilia and her transfiguration at the end of the play, and partly because I have grappled for years with the character of Othello and he still eludes me. What a play! 

I think I would say that the Nicholas Hytner production is my favourite version so far. At first, I didn’t particularly like Rory Kinnear as Iago. Ian McKellen is the one who most matches the Iago I had in my head reading the text: in front of others, he speaks softly and listens sympathetically, thus appearing trustworthy; alone, he’s cold, calculating, consumed with hatred for Othello. Bob Hoskins plays a very different Iago and that also works excellently: he has a matey persona, fun, genial, but sometimes chuckles to himself like a psychopath. Rory Kinnear is yet another Iago: a dull fellow who doesn’t stand out in the crowd but who in his dullness appears honest and trustworthy. When he poisons Othello’s ear, he plays so well the part of one who gains nothing from it, who doesn’t even want to say it. It is a different approach, and it works. 

The reason it is my favourite version so far is that the entire production—and the entire cast—is excellent. In the BBC production, Penelope Wilton doesn’t quite have the childlike qualities of Desdemona—the character is saintlike and at the same time childlike. The Trevor Nunn production has a perfect Desdemona (Imogen Stubbs) and a perfect Iago, but tilts too much towards Iago—the play is not about Iago but about Othello, about the destruction of his soul. It also messes up the killing scene, as I have written a few times before—the tension rises and rises and Othello must kill Desdemona when it gets to the highest pitch—there cannot be any pause, any interruption, any lingering—Othello kills her at the height of madness—the way Willard White and Imogen Stubbs play the scene not only destroy the climax of the play but ruin the entire tragedy. 

The production I have just seen doesn’t have this problem. Nicholas Hytner and his cast get perfectly right the pacing, tension, and pitch. The scene of Othello murdering Desdemona brought tears to my eyes, and when it got to the moment of Emilia screaming “Thou hast not half that power to do me harm/ As I have to be hurt”, I was crying. To look at the lifeless body of sweet, innocent Desdemona (Olivia Vinall), to hear the agony, the passion of Emilia (Lyndsey Marshal), to see the horror on Othello’s face as he realises what he has done to his love and to his own soul—the play tore my heart to pieces. 

Excellent production.