On Stage

...He is probably lying about Cassio, but not about himself After all, even if he has not yet been promoted to lieutenant, he holds the very respectable rank of ensign, indicating that he is a valuable officer and comrade-at-arms In any case, it is impossible to believe Shakespeare's Iago would allow himself, as Plummer does, to be slapped in the face by Roderigo without reacting As Othello, James Earl Jones is magnificent m the great final scenes leading to the murder of Desdemona and his own death I will risk sounding sacrilegious and say, however, that until that point, no matter how many times he has played the part before, he doesn't seem right for it here There is absolutely nothing military about Jones, who is supposed to be Venice's most glorious general His Othello is a man of thought, not of the sword As such, it is difficult to see why he likes Iago and enjoys his company Jones' justly famous booming voice is of no help to him in the role, and his girth is an obstacle If Othello were portrayed more as a lean and dry military man, it would be easier to see how he was blinded by his late love for Desdemona and became easy prey for a scheming, seemingly trustworthy subordinate The most difficult role in the play, because it is the most original, unexpected and daring, is Desdemona's She is certainly the first ingenue in the history of the theater to run off with her lover in the middle of the night and never come back home Though Shakespeare does try to attenuate this unheard of behavior by insisting that she and Othello got married, it is never made clear where they found the time or the place A perfectly depicted Desdemona, then, would incorporate an almost impossible contradiction, being at once a fragile, innocent girl, indoctrinated with the severe education befitting the daughter of a 16th-century Venetian Nobleman, and an impetuous and remarkably independent woman Few actresses have been absolutely equal to this challenge, and Dunne Wiest is not one of them Nonetheless, she is a solid professional who knows what to do on stage The rest of the cast is creditable, with Kelsey Grammer as Cassio and Aideen O'Kelly as Emilia among the better performers Graeme Campbell overdoes the foolishness of Roderigo...

...On Stage BUNGLING THE BARD BY LEO SAUVAGE BROADWAY and 50th Street promised to be the scene of a rather unusual and very exciting experience for theatergoers this season Simply by crossing the avenue from the Circle in the Square to the Winter Garden, we would be able to see two Shakespeare works, Macbeth and Othello But the reality proved a sadder one Macbeth closed on February 14 after running only a month, and though Othello is a box-office success, the fact remains that the Bard has been badly served on both sides of the Great White Way The night I saw Macbeth, director/star Nicol Williamson took the stage after the curtain came down to announce its imminent closing date He did so in a graceless and presumptuous manner The company would not be able to continue, he said, because some critics did not like his staging or his acting, or both, and prospective audiences were unduly influenced by critics He, Nicol Williamson, was unshaken in his conviction that he had given us a very fine Macbeth—particularly, he seemed to imply condescendingly, considering that here he was a genuine Scotsman having to work with an entirely American cast I had come to the Circle in the Square with a positive attitude Aftcrthedisappointment of last year's Macbeth at Lincoln Center, I was ready to appreciate anything of dramatic value in a more modest rendition Unfortunately, it did not take long for my mood to change I cannot help being annoyed when a director displays both "avant-garde' pretensions and a lack of originality by employing the now hackneved device of having the whole cast stand or walk around aimlessly for several minutes before the plav begins About all the\ can do is look like they are waiting for a train at Grand Central Even when this gimmick was new, some 15-20 years ago, I did not understand what it contributed to a play's theatrical impact In this case, there was the added discomfort of being afforded a leisurely opportunity to study Julie Weiss' grotesque mixture of costumes—surely conceived with Nicol Williamson's approval, if not upon his instructions Neither traditional nor modern nor neutral, they were baffling What was the purpose, for instance of combining 19th-century cavalry sabers with 20th-century riding breeches and vaguely medieval coats of mail9 Later on, we saw some brass-buttoned blue coats of the type fashionable with young women m Western Europe at the beginning of World War II And Macbeth, for his last visit to the witches, wore a full-length Goenng-style military overcoat The rest of the production, Williamson notwithstanding, was mediocre at best In only one respect was it an improvement over Sarah Caldwell's Macbeth at Lincoln Center Instead of Banquo's ghost being seen everywhere except where it should be according to the script, here it remained invisible The Othello at the Winter Garden suffers a different kind of artistic failure It is a handsome spectacle David Chapman's set designs make good use of ingenious combinations of draperies, and Robert Fletcher's costumes offer variety and color while maintaining a thematic unity The problem lies with the two stars Othello has always been a difficult play to bring convincingly to lite, especially for a realisticaly-minded contemporary public Yet its success of course hinges on the audience being made to believe in and respond to the actions ot the two central characters James Earl Jones and Christopher Plum-mer are top performers...

...Yet whether the lault originated with them or with director Peter Coe or with Zoc Caldwell, who is said to have taken over the staging betore the show readied New York, thev don't makecither Othello or lago comprehensible to us Plummer s lago is the worst aspect of the evening Finding a plausible motivation for Iago's bottomless villainy is a dilemma faced by every se-nous actor who undertakes the role Tyrone Guthrie tells how when Laurence Olivier was preparing to play Iago at the Old Vic, they had long discussions with Sigmund Freud's biographer, Ernest Jones They were "full of theories about the psychological relation of Iago and Othello " Nonetheless—although Guthrie does not say this was the cause?the production was a disappointment ' I doubt whether Freud himself could have given a definitive reason for Iago's behavior Shakespeare couldn't, he didn't even try It is widely agreed that Iago's initial spur—his bitterness at being bypassed in favor of Cassio for the position of General Othello's lieutenant—is an utterly inadequate explanation for the full range of his later deeds, particularly after he effectively disgraces Cassio and gets the post In one of the early scenes, Iago mentions another reason for hating the Moor, a rumor "that 'twixt my sheets h'as done my office "Butins difficult to imagine Othello, even before he has met Desdemona, going after Emilia, and Iago, who never mentions this again, doesn't seem to seriously believe it himself "I know not if t be true There are a few hints of racial prejudice in Shakespeare's text Roderigo, who wants Desdemona for himself, spitefully calls Othello "the thick lips ' When Brabantio, Desdemona's father, complains to the Doge of Venice and the Senate about his daughter's elopement, he argues that only by some fearful magic could Othello have taken the innocent girl to his "sooty bosom " Racism, though, does not really fit the pattern of the play Nobody in the Venetian Senate seems to be afraid, or even aware of the dangers of "miscegenation " And as Othello tells the Senators when he explains the origins of Desdemona's love, Brabantio himself had in fact liked him, frequently invited him to his house and been interested in the story of his life As for Iago, he does shout beneath Brabantio's window, "An old black ram is tupping your white ewe ' But there can be no doubt that he served faithfully under the Moor in past wars, and considered it an honor to become his lieutenant In sum, to be dramatically valid, Iago simply must be played as a man who discovers devilish satisfaction in being evil He has to be carried away by his own power to make others do his will, and be convinced that his cleverness makes him superior to everyone else If Iago's treachery is so transparent that the audience can see through him, he becomes a misplaced clown and his victims, including Othello, insufferable cretins True, Shakespeare hasn't made subtlety easy by introducing him in the act of extracting jewels and money from the hapless Roderigo But the key to a well-played Iago is that he look and sound honest while telling his worst lies and casting his most perfidious insinuations He must appear believable to those he betrays, otherwise Shakespeare's mighty tragedy becomes a farce UNFORTUNATELY, Christopher Plummer's Iago does often seem more like Tartuffe Quick, nervous titters are heard from the audience when Othello or Cassio calls Iago "honest," or when Iago applies that term to himself One has the feeling that were Shakespeare's name not on the Playbill, quite a few onlookers would start enthusiastically hissing and booing the bad guy, as if Othello were a campy melodrama Also painfully absent from Plummer's performance is any sense that Iago is a battle-hardened soldier with some conventional notion of honor, if not of decency Cassio, Iago shouts, is an "arithmetician," what today we would call a desk officer, who "never set a squadron in the field,' while he fought by Othello's side "at Rhodes, at Cyprus, and on other grounds...