This is a particularly poor production of "Othello" for many reasons; the most primary of them being that the actor playing the title role makes little sense of the text. The gentleman to my right whispered to me during the show that the actor sounded like a combination of Sean Connery and Darth Vader. While there are any number of racial/cultural assumptions inherent in my co-audience member's observation, at least one half of his statement is unerringly accurate. The actor playing Othello sounds a lot like he's doing a bizarre impersonation of Mr. Connery. The gentleman to my right also went on to comment, "Don't get me wrong, he's [the actor playing "Othello"] very articulate," and he was. I understood every word that came out of this actor's mouth, but it was like hearing a string of well spoken words without the performing having married the words to meaning. It was more a recitation than, I suppose, what I've come to expect of the marriage between performance and text.

I had other problems with the title actor as well. I didn't like the choices made regarding the physicality of the character. The choices made were obvious and riven with racial/mythological stereotypes that I didn't consider terribly subtle or nuanced. The actor transitions from an upright military gate to bearing a lumbering/ape-like swinging of the arms, a jutting forward/hanging of his head, and a heavy clomping of step. I don't think the choices made by the actor or the director exhibited much grace or subtlety at all.

This lack of subtlety is most evident in the performance of Iago. There is no rapport between the character and the audience. He doesn't try to win us [the audience] to his side. Hence, his performance holds less the joy of rhetoric and seduction to his side than it does a sense of a steamroller that will barrel on with or without the audience. I think the character Iago has many more dimensions than are exibited in this performance.

I might risk it to say that the actor playing Roderigo makes this entire performance worth seeing. My heart goes out to the character and believe everything that he does on stage. He is a wonderful actor.

There is nothing of an impetuous girl in this construction of Desdemona. There is no joy or glee or unbridled happiness in her character. There is no laughter. Thus, I could care less when she dies. My heart did not break. She seemed as resigned to her own murder when the play began as she did on the night the light was put out.

Parts of the set and costuming reflected (or were intended to evoke) something of the southern United States before 1863 (Civil War). The Duke of Venice was something of a southern "gentleman". I am not certain in which ways we [the audience] were intended to read this hinting of American Pre-Civil War-ness, but I am also not certain that the evocation of the American history of slavery does much more than cloud and confuse this straightforward play.

The actress who played Emilia didn't make very many interesting choices. She (like so many of the other actors in the play) began playing the ending of the play from there first moments on stage. This is only my opinion, but the tragedy of "Othello" is that everyone in it - except Iago - doesn't know that they are in a tragedy. Many characters, in fact, aught to be played as if they hold all of the joy and possibility of being in a comedy within them; thus, Iago's plot is all the more horrifying, unexpected and tragic.

In general, this production lacked much in the way of artistry or creativity. It tells the story of "Othello," but on many levels, emotive and artistic, there is little magic in the web of it.

As a friend of mine said, Iago was fabulous. I forgot how central he is to the entire play. When it ended, everyone wanted to give him his props as an actor, but I sensed people held back because they were still wrapped up in hating the character. Kudos to Paul Niebanck for creating that kind of cognitive dissonance!

Outstanding!