NEW YORK — “Othello” is Shakespeare’s most domestic tragedy, wrought from the marital bedroom, shot through with the corrosive power of sexual jealousy and suffused with betrayal of the most personal and effective kind.
Othello and Desdemona, passionate lovers both, are slowly done in by, well, gossip.
For all of the famous complexities of its central interracial marriage, the play is Shakespeare’s cautionary tale for couples, a reminder to look to each other for answers, not trust noses with devious agendas pressed against the marital window.
The casting of the 70-year-old Denzel Washington as Othello against the 27-year-old British actress Molly Osborne as Desdemona is a provocative choice and, of course, one that has caused a massive demand for costly tickets for this 15-week Broadway run at the Barrymore Theatre. Given the apparently well-heeled nature of the audience at the performance I attended and the slick, contemporary attire used in director Kenny Leon’s production, as designed by Dede Ayite, I felt at times like I was watching an immersive, militarized version of “Billions,” or “Succession.”
Actors can be effective at any age and the lean and charismatic Washington looks fit as a fiddle for love or war. But you don’t feel much of a sexual connection between Othello and Desdemona; Washington goes for a more paternalistic approach which, to my mind, fights the play.
We know Desdemona loves her guy, physically: “I saw Othello’s visage in his mind, and to his honor and his valiant parts did I my soul and fortunes consecrate,” she says, cheekily. Othello is a lot squishier, hacking on as he does about the curse of marriage and how he can’t control his wife’s sexual appetite. The problem is that doesn’t make much sense unless he thought he was feeding it himself on a regular basis. Sexual insecurity is what makes this great military man so vulnerable to Iago’s machinations. He can’t come off as her weird dad.
Perhaps in response to that difficulty, Washington seems to treat the character as removed from his own self, as if Washington is playing an Othello who is himself playing the character of Othello, disconnected from Othello himself. That’s a legitimate way in; lots of Othellos of my experience have treated their guy as forced to play a part that does not come naturally, or to overachieve to fight off the racist snipers with him in their sights. But the danger is removing the urgency of the play. Tellingly, Washington seems never to look directly at the audience during the play’s famous soliloquies, preferring to deliver them high into the air. I don’t think Andrew Burnap’s Cassio, notwithstanding that actor’s charming eloquence, gives Washington enough competition.
Jake Gyllenhaal, who plays Iago, certainly gives the Moor of Venice plenty to fight against, if he chose to do so. Here is far and away the most dynamic performance of the night, a riveting, turbocharged interpretation that avoids any and all villainous cliches, or flowery self-doubts, and just presents a malevolent but highly effective military guy who sets out to do what he wants to straightforwardly do, a train hurtling down a track, gaining speed with every scene, determined to knock the Othello-and-Desdemona carriage into the ditch.
What might surprise even this actor’s fervent fans is the joy he takes in the lines: every word rings out clearly and colloquially, as if freshly minted and of this very moment. Rare is an Iago who has you wondering if he has a point to his villainy, and his deeply cynical wife, Emilia, as vividly played by Kimber Elayne Sprawl, is similarly fluid and fascinating; their relationship comes off as a more realistic and enjoyable counterpoint to that other, stranger one, wherein neither party dares to get too close for fear of invading comfort zones or upsetting the whole inter-generational shebang. It’s interesting but it throws the play off. Othello is the name on the marquee.
Leon makes much of the military context and Derek McLane’s setting is elegantly minimalist, featuring Globe Theatre-like columns to hide behind, albeit lit by Natasha Katz with a triumphalist glaze.
Eventually, of course, we end up in the bedroom and Desdemona in a nightgown as her Othello, seemingly off in a world of his own creation, takes her down even though it seems he knows not what he does, let alone why.
Chris Jones is a Tribune critic.
cjones5@chicagotribune.com
At the Ethel Barrymore Theatre, 243 W. 47th St., New York; othellobway.com
