Word: othello
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...questions in literature, emerges as nothing more than a request for the salt. Actresses and directors are possibly misled by all the scholars who keep trying to increase the "four great tragedies" by one. We are not gripped by Antony and Cleopatra as we are by Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello and Lear; we remain relatively detached. In fact, there is enough satire in Antony to make it possible to stage the work as Shavian high comedy...
...Othello, and Sir Laurence Olivier again. 100 Baker...
Only one example of Director George Hamlin's all-inclusive application of energy and finesse is the night-time revel following Othello's arrival at Cyprus. A party of drunken soldiers and whores idle and sprawl with calculated precision to Iago's song-leading, and when Roderigo pursues an intoxicated Cassio (Michael Gurdy) onstage for some extravagant swordplay, the scene bursts into a Shakespearean streetfight. Hamlin's careful blocking makes every drunken soldier's drunken move part of one grand theatrical effect--and everything meshes neatly behind Cassio's supremely pathetic disclaimers of intoxication. Half the tension of the scene...
...steals part of our sympathy almost against our will. He is so capable a man that we sympathize with him over his lack of promotion--and wonder why he isn't able to engineer his own advancement, rather than others deaths. If he hadn't managed to survive Othello's unsuccessful vengeance, he might in death have looked like a twisted tragic hero. As it is, even after his last speech has sealed his lips and ended any chance that he will explain his evil motives to the audience. Pachoda's Iago can divert attention from center-stage with...
...mine (who loves plays) (and Shakespeare) says he has mental reservations about seeing Shakespeare acted by students. He has very good reasons for those reservations--Shakespearean drama is always complex and demanding, and amateur productions are all too frequently disappointing. I'm going to tell him to see Othello...