Frances, our Fearless Leader, braved Perth's unseasonable weather recently to see the National Theatre’s production of Othello. Here is her take on the film.
The National Theatre’s Othello (shown on
film last weekend) was the finest Shakespearean production I have seen in a
completely modern interpretation (though I think Ralph Fiennes’s Coriolanus runs
it close). Despite a completely faithful adherence to the script, there was not
one jarring note or anachronism.
In a brief interview before curtain-up, the
director explained that he wanted the cast to be able to speak as in the
present, and indeed the performers made the text their own with never a false
step.
The leading men – Adrian Lester as Othello
and Rory Kinnear as Iago – were stunning, and were strongly supported by the
entire cast. Iago burst on to the first scene already brim full of festering
fury and jealousy, and this intensity was sustained throughout as the dreadful
course of his revenge unfolded. Not only his stance and facial expression, but
even his manner of speech brought to mind the old clichés of ‘coiled spring ‘
and ‘lighted fuse ‘, as he spoke with explosive force, outlining the grounds
for his hatred. Othello appeared before the Venetian Senate calm and
self-confident with an impressive dignity, clearly a man whose history gave him
every reason to feel justifiably proud and to face anyone on equal terms. To
watch his gradual destruction was desperately sad.
The two worked superbly together, and the
long and difficult pivotal scene (Act 3 iii) in which Iago convinces Othello of
his wife’s treachery was enthralling. This was no easy victory: Othello fought
all the way not to believe, while Iago played him and reeled him in, and
finally delivered the coup de grace.
The women were, as the director said,
feisty, and Desdemona did not die without a fierce struggle. Emilia, played as
a serving soldier, also exhibited an independent spirit and, when she finally
realised Iago’s full guilt, railed against him powerfully.
The most admirable feature of this
performance, for me, was the actors’ skilful delivery of the spoken word. Every
phrase was thought through and meaningful, every subtlety fully explored and
the emotional content modulated masterfully to support and extend the meaning
of the words. Sometimes very well-known speeches or phrases can be too familiar
to a listener, but here every thought was freshly examined; so, Othello’s
famous description of his wooing was lightly handled, not weighed down
unnaturally by the amazing imagery. Again, his self-pitying speech of farewell
– to the plumed troops, the shrill trump, etc. – was no ‘set piece ‘ but a
revelation of Othello’s whole past. Even ‘one that lov’d not wisely, but too
well ‘ was re-examined. Altogether, every performer’s delivery allowed a
listener to hear the play as if for the first time. They had taken the script
and made it, and the characters, their own.
The last-named (pic from Wikipedia at left) is one of the most well-supported, and one of his keen advocates, Alan Tarica, has written a commentary on the sonnets. Read in reverse order, they suggest a case for Oxford's authorship of the Shakepearean oeuvre at least as convincing as any other bardic conspiracy theory.
