Putting Paid to Othello

Othello
Royal Shakespeare Company
The Observer

Peter Hall’s production of Othello, like his previous Shakespeares at the Olivier, is sternly devoid of anything you could call a concept. 

This asceticism is apt to bear hard on those actors who have merely to stand around, especially if they are doing it on a stage this size. But Othello calls for fewer of these than any other tragedy; after all, the Venetian senate are likely to end up, however the play is staged, sitting in ranks and looking old. In this product quite a few of them are old, or at least mature. For once too, the abundant talent and experience in the supporting cast is given the time and space to express itself. 

Peter Scofield delivers the last three speeches of Othello himself—especially the one that consists of the words ‘O fool, fool, fool’—very simply and affectingly. Earlier he administers to Desdemona a crackling slap on the face. The rest of the time is sonorously somnolent; no fires, no torment. Pride, of a quiet kind, there is; though what with his studied gestures—which include the trying on for size of imaginary cuckold’s horns—it often seems more like self-approbation. 

This suggests that Mr. Scofield has adopted the Eliot-Leavis view of the Moor: an egoist who deserves even more than he gets. Why what amounts to sustained jeer at the central character should be held to amount to a satisfying play I have never understood; but, such as it is, this interpretation needs to be followed through to the (literally) bitter end. Mr. Scofield’s end is sweet. 

The first half of the play—up to and including the brawl—belongs to Iago, and Michal Bryant has no trouble with it, maintaining an even, sensible, humorous pace which enables him to switch effortlessly from manipulating his dupes to manipulating the audience. The chilled laughter he induces is just right. But he can make no contact with this Othello. The temptation scene is a slow fuse leading to a puff of smoke; it ends with no bond established between the two men, and just about kills the play. 

Felicity Kendal, who improves and improves, is a properly self-willed Desdemona, whose lies over the handkerchief are well marked. Yvonne Bryceland's Emilia has her usual unobtrusive firmness; Stephen Moore’s kind and lazy Cassio, Michael Gamdon’s moon-faced, moon-minded Roderigo, and Penelope Wilton’s Bianca, more housewife than hussy, all justify luxury casting. Mark Dignam even makes something of the sententious Duke.