Word: pachoda
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Othello too hangs helplessly on the overpowering false persuasions of Pachoda's Iago. Curt Anderson is an Othello of imposing appearance but with a somewhat lesser capacity for tortured response to Iago's calculated hints. But if it weren't that Othello's peculiar virtue is trust in other men--and his peculiar vice to distrust his own feelings in the unfamiliar pursuit of love--the battle wouldn't be worth the fighting. Iago so overpowers the Moor that pity keeps us on Othello's side much longer than hope. Though he plays with just enough confidence and grace...
Shakespeare probably intended Iago to be a kind of human devil in this play, but Ralph Pachoda's Iago, at times running away with the show, stretches his role almost into that of a Miltonic Satan, a villain so persistent in his rebellion, so singleminded in his misconceived passion for revenge, that he 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...
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