Word: othello
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...tiny stage of a straw-hat theater in Cambridge, Mass, last week Paul Robeson made his first U.S. appearance in Othello. After seeing him, scholars might still insist that Shakespeare meant Othello for a Moor and not a Negro. But drama lovers well might ask why, having played it twelve years ago in London, Robeson waited so long to play it over here. For in spite of muffing certain speeches-his lines sometimes throbbed awkwardly-and overacting certain scenes-his Grand Manner sometimes burst a seam-Robeson gave a performance that even at its worst was vivid and that...
Robeson's great voice, stature, bearing were physically impressive. He gave a plausible impression of being just such a towering man as was Othello himself. More important, Robeson conveyed the bigness of Othello's nature-its warmth, poetry (nobody in Shakespeare utters lordlier speech), simplicity, trustingness: the clawing horror which seizes Othello when lago dupes him into thinking himself a cuckold could come only from an utterly unjealous nature...
Robeson caught, too, much of the final Othello who stifles Desdemona' not savagely from hate, but solemnly for honor. Earlier, however, when Othello's tortured soul is seared with rage, Robeson unwisely tried to reproduce Othello's violence-which on the stage becomes grotesque-instead of finding a way to suggest...
...scratch production, Othello had the shrewd, story-must-come-first direction that Margaret Webster also gave to the Maurice Evans Hamlet and Macbeth...
Following on the heels of "Othello" is far from an easy spot for any play, but the Cambridge Summer Theatre's selection of "Out of the Frying Pan" proved to be a fortunate choice. Francis Swann's comedy about a gang of screwball actors in one of the funniest things to hit Boston this summer, and some clever acting and smooth direction add immeasurably to the general merriment...