Othello by Shakespeare's Globe (review)

The Globe's 2018 revival of Othello, the fourth since it opened in 1997, saw the welcome return of former Globe Musical Director Clare van Kampen as director, and former Globe Artistic Director Mark Rylance in the role of Iago. Iago was to be Rylance's first Shakespearean performance at the Globe since his critically acclaimed performances in the "original practice" productions of Twelfth Nightand Richard IIIin 2012. Olivia, in particular, was a role he seemed born to play and I was intrigued to see how he would handle the part of Iago and, perhaps more pertinently, whether André Holland's Othello would be able to hold his own against such an experienced Globe performer.

Van Kampen declared in the program that she was "going for a heavy cut" with the text, a decision which I felt added to rather than detracted from the drama. The bawdy exchange between Iago and Desdemona at the quayside (2.1) was significantly reduced, and the two exchanges with the Clown in 3.1 and 3.4 were excised in their entirety. This meant that the second half opened with Desdemona asking Emilia, "[w]here should I lose that handkerchief?," thus drawing our attention to the significance of this central plot device. There were some small cuts to Iago's monologues. For instance, he ended his soliloquy in 2.3 with "Divinity of hell" (345), at which point he shook hands with one of the groundlings. This meant that we lost two of Iago's greatest pronouncements: "When devils will the blackest sins put on / They do suggest at first with heavenly shows" (2.3.346–47), and "So will I turn her virtue into pitch" (2.3.355). However, his simple gesture created a sense of complicity with the audience that more than compensated for the lost lines. The overall result of the excisions was a clear production that sacrificed none of the music of Othellowhile achieving a slick, dramatic pace that drove relentlessly through to its inevitable and tragic conclusion.

The play opened with Roderigo struggling to keep up with Iago as he raced towards Brabantio's house, weaving around the two columns in frantic figure-of-eights. From this opening scene, Iago was established as a master-manipulator, leading not just the credulous gull Roderigo, but all of the other characters, "by th' nose" (1.3.400) with his scheming. The sense of Iago as a Prospero-like puppet master continued throughout the play. For instance, he stood on the balcony upstage left during the encounter between Othello, Brabantio, and the Duke in 1.3, watching and calculating with a silent sense of menace. He arrived triumphantly in Cyprus on a cart drawn through the groundlings in 2.1, only releasing a cramped and contorted Roderigo from an oversized suitcase some one hundred lines later. He led the dancing and drinking in 2.3 with the gusto of an "honest" and affable officer, his "stoup of wine" (2.3.27) a large crate with several rattling bottles.

I have long been baffled by those who claim that Iago is without motive. It has always been clear to me that it is Iago's sexual jealousy that drives him, rather than a sense of motiveless evil, a reading that Rylance's performance reinforced with a clarity that I have never experienced before. This was most notable during the rambunctious drinking scene in Cyprus, during which he watched jealously over Emilia and led her away from Cassio on more than one occasion. He was also evidently discomfited by the overt manifestations of physical intimacy between Othello and Desdemona. [End...