Othello – a first at UVic

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This is the first year that the drama department at the University of Victoria has mounted Shakespeare’s Othello. Rebecca had three tickets. At the last moment, Duncan said he was staying home, so that gave us an extra seat to put our jackets on. He has seen Othello twice already. He said that in the NT Live production, Othello took too long to smoother Ophelia and that he want to spend the evening suffering along with her, since it was probable that the play was going to end the same way again.

Rebecca’s colleague, Bob, had told her that he has seen the show last week and that it was absolutely the best production he had ever seen. Bob spends a lot of time, flying to the US or to London to see opera or theatre. I respect his opinion and was curious as to what it was that made Bob say that.

By the intermission Rebecca and I had much to say to each other. I could hardly contain myself from leaning over and talking to her while the first act was going on, worried that I would forget my thoughts before I had time to express them. The show was done in black and white, both the scenery and the costuming. The music was live, either madrigals strolling along in the market scenes, or a drum, set up on the one of the stairs that the audience might normally use, beating as though it were a heart.

Iago was sufficiently evil. I spent a lot of my evening watching the actor; he was clever, often use his body to express a word or a phrase. He had some movement of his hand or his head or his hips that would underscore the text – or perhaps his feet would take a different stance, or his lungs would fill with evil, it seemed. Rebecca called his performance being into the text, taking it on as his own.

As we were entering the theatre, I heard someone asked the ticket taker how the performance would be. I heard her say that she has seen it five times. I know why. I would return in a heartbeat. Oh, except for the scene where Ophelia gets smothered.

I might shut my eyes next time.

Arta