Othello (review)

For the Fairbanks Shakespeare Theatre’s seventeenth annual summer production, Englishman Graham Watts returned to Alaska to cast and direct a performance of Othello. In his “Director’s Note,” Watts describes the language of Othello as “succinct, gritty and direct,” and the play itself as “the first modern psychological thriller.” With only two locations and a small cast, Othello also lends itself to production during lean economic times.

Watts chose to set the play in southern United States in the late 1940s for several reasons. According to Watts, as both a direct result and a by-product of World War II, during this time period the United States began to take a more active role in influencing global decisions, a course of action that soon resulted in the Cold War. Moreover, the late 1940s in the U.S. saw a newly mobilized female workforce which demanded more influence on domestic and public affairs, while ethnic groups initiated civil rights movements that challenged traditional hierarchies and laws. Watts sees the southern U.S. in the late 1940s as a nexus of these tensions: Othello, an ethnic outsider who has achieved military honors and officer status during the war, returns to “Venice” and marries a white woman, despite the Miscegenation Laws.

Rather than the traditional depiction of Othello as a “Moor,” or an African-American, Watts decided to characterize Othello as a Native American; as he says, “what better example of ethnic outsiders are there [in the U.S.] than Native Americans?” For the part of Othello, Watts cast Jake Hart, ethnically a Niitsitapi, or Blackfeet Indian, who is not only very big (think Chief Bromden in One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest) and very charismatic, but also a very good actor. Opposite Hart’s Othello, Watts cast the diminutive, feisty Emily Yates as Desdemona. Yates’s background as a singer and dancer infused the part of Desdemona with a level of athleticism and musical ability rarely highlighted in the part. The physical and verbal interaction of Othello and Desdemona in the early scenes of the play was often unintentionally funny, as Yates’s elfish Desdemona played to Hart’s Shrek-like Othello. Such light-hearted treatment of the two roles early in the play made the transformation of the characters in the final scenes that much more effective, a topic to which I will return shortly.

Watts developed a rather clever device to introduce the characters and to provide the back-story and setting for the play. Ten minutes before the performance began, all of the characters assembled on stage as if they were going to a dance or a local USO party at the Officer’s Club. The men were clad in military uniforms and the women in fashionable dresses of the late 1940s. Music and dancing from the period provided the backdrop for a type of dumb show or movie trailer (reminiscent of the opening of the Ian McKellen movie production of Richard III). Cassio, who was, of course, the best dancer, flirted with Desdemona, and while Emilia flirted with just about everyone else, Iago, Roderigo and Othello—none of whom seemed very eager to dance—watched from the wings, drinks in hand. Eventually, when Othello danced with Desdemona, the crowd murmured its disapproval in heated asides and gestures. While the dancing continued, a messenger circulated, delivering letters in which Cassio received his commission to be Othello’s lieutenant, and Iago received his rejection notice. As they read their letters, the music faded out and the characters wandered offstage until only Iago and Roderigo remained.

It perhaps goes without saying that no production of Othello can be successful without strong performances from the actors playing the parts of Iago and Emilia. Since Iago is on stage for thirteen of...