Shakespeare's Globe Theatre

Othello May 4–August 19, 2007

As each generation's freshman lecture notes make clear, generic distinction is not only about thematic difference but about varieties of dramatic construction. Genre is unfair, for while comedies allow a more or less even spread of lines across the whole company, and therefore facilitate an ensemble effort (among which a single weak performance can be allowed to fade mercifully into the background), tragedies prioritise an individual—Richard III, Coriolanus, Lear. Occasionally two members of the company carry the production's weight upon their shoulders—Antony and Cleopatra, Juliet and Romeo, Iago and Othello. In the case of these pairings, the dramatic structure can make matters even worse. If the pair is not evenly balanced, the virtues of one performance can serve to magnify the shortcomings of the other. Likewise, a poor performance by one of a pair of protagonists will exaggerate the achievements of the other, while, at the same time, intensifying the deficiencies of the production as a whole. A mediocre Iago and a mediocre Othello may be better for a production than an excellent Iago and a lacklustre Othello. Genre is not fair to its players. Unbalanced pairings of players are not fair to the audience.

Bluntly and not without reluctance, I have to pronounce Eamonn Walker's performance as Othello to be unfit for the purpose. His rapid delivery, redundant enjambment and his tendency to deliver the speeches as though he were line-running in the privacy of his dressing-room made this a vocally under-powered performance. The rapidity of the reviewer's note-taking often necessitates the appropriation of textual fragments and commentary thereon. When the Duke pondered the eloquence and majesty of Othello's wooing he remarked thoughtfully: "I think this tale would win my daughter too" against which my notes say, "no chance." When Desdemona asked her husband, "Why do you speak so faintly?", I jotted down "quite." Walker's hasty and indistinct verbal delivery made his occupation of the role almost inconspicuous. For a character of the supposed charisma of Othello, this was all but fatal to the entire production. (That the program credits Patsy Rodenburg as Voice Coach and Giles Block with Text Work makes the modest amplitude of Walker's performance all the more unfortunate.)

To make matters worse, the strength and variety, sensitivity and intelligence of Tim McInnerny's Iago served to point up rather than downplay the shortcomings of his opposite number. McInnerny displayed a deft comic timing throughout and vocally, he moved from rapidly delivered repartee to a sonorous bass for "I hate the Moor." McInnerny's multifaceted villain was as mercurial and quick-witted as the role demands, improvising his way around tricky situations and concealing his inner void behind a series of ingenious façades. As he lectured his master on the evils of jealousy or expressed his misgivings about the apparently subtle exit of Cassio, he staggered his words, as though the information was being wrung out of him—a device which made the confiding apparently all the more reluctant and so "sincere." He discoursed in fits and starts as though he were struggling to censor himself. Perhaps most disarming of all was McInnerny's matter-of-factness when he addressed the audience directly. Alone onstage he turned to us and explained with utter reasonableness how he would displace Cassio, eliminate Roderigo and make Othello love him "For making him egregiously an ass." His treatment of Roderigo, played by Sam Crane as a callow and useless sixth-former from an English public school, was comically superior. Roderigo would enter behind him, shrouded in his cape as though ingeniously under-cover. Even without turning towards him, Iago would acknowledge his presence as though his omniscience provided him with 360-degree vision. There was more than a touch of the comic savagery of Toby and Andrew between the pair and McInnerny's Iago would frequently raise his eyes to heaven as though to suggest to the audience, "How can this man be so gullible?"

Far more disturbing still...