Word: othellos
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...special bus ride will leave for the Shakespeare Festival on Saturday, July 27, for the matinee performance of "Othello...
Hyman has played this role with the Shakespearewrights in New York and at the Antioch Festival in Ohio; it is obvious from his present performance that he has lived with the role a long time and knows exactly what he is doing. Most Othellos make the mistake of getting enraged too soon; consequently as the play progresses they try to bellow and shriek ever more loudly until the limit of intelligibility has been left far behind. But Hyman is careful to adjust to the big time scale of this process, so that the proper prolonged Beethovenian crescendo results. For, contrary...
...possible to have a good Hamlet almost in vacuo. But a good Othello is impossible without a good Iago, and vice versa. Alfred Drake shows here that he can excel in something besides musical comedy. He brings a welcome restrained maturity to the role, and we are spared the moustache-twirling, eyeball-rolling villain. Instead of black garb with cape, how refreshing to see Iago in a series of brown costumes! Although he occasionally indulges in too studied a pose, he handles his lines with nuanced variety, often spitting them out rapidly in keeping with Iago's lightning-quick intellect...
Jacqueline Brookes is fine as Desdemona, "the sweetest innocent that e'er did lift up eye." Her handling of the moments when she is slapped and bewhored by Othello is deeply affecting, and her dying words most touching. Olive Deering does well as the loose Bianca. But Sada Thompson's Emilia is too Desdemona-like; she ought to be sharply contrasted with her mistress--less refined, more common and blunt, at times even vulgar. I suspect the result would have been better if the Misses Thompson and Deering had exchanged roles...
Performances of Othello will continue the rest of the summer, with The Merchant of Venice joining the schedule on July 10 and Much Ado About Nothing on August...