A classic Shakespeare, served without a twist

Staging a Shakespearean play is both one of the most common and one of the most daunting choices a director can make. Audiences await their favorite quotations with bated breath: They know exactly what's coming, and they can't wait to get there. What new light can be shed on the Bard's immortal, all-too-famous words?

As one of Shakespeare's most well-known and often-performed plays, "Othello" has undergone myriad permutations, from Verdi's opera "Otello," to "O," the 2001 film starring Julia Stiles and set in a Southern high school, to "The Berenstain Bears and the Green-Eyed Monster."

The Program in Theater and Dance's production of "Othello," which opened last weekend and continues this Thursday through Saturday, takes an almost radically traditional approach. Director Jackie Bello '09 focuses her production on the raw power of the acting and the brutal force of Shakespeare's language, largely dispensing with bells and whistles to concentrate on the text.

The set is minimal and elegant: A balcony, a stairwell and several Venetian archways give us just enough to evoke the idea of a world.

Kelvin Dinkins '09 is a bold and powerful actor, and he draws upon his talents to great effect in his portrayal of Othello. In the early scenes of the play, Dinkins struts on stage, infusing Othello with a subtle arrogance that underscores his regal air. But the character transitions from noble husband to raging beast so suddenly and so completely that it is almost impossible for an actor to pull off. Dinkins makes the shift feel realistic, maintaining the dignity of his physical comportment while his face and voice become tortured and only later breaking his posture. As the play progresses, he grows into the character; what began as a dignified stiffness in his physical carriage becomes a last-ditch attempt to cling to his sense of self-worth in a shattering world. Dinkins' Othello is more convincing and more interesting in insanity than he is when he is in his right mind.

As Iago, the metaphoric snake in the garden, Shawn Fennell '10 slithers across the stage. While several of the other actors in the show carry themselves rather rigidly, the rubber-limbed Fennell interprets Iago gymnastically, bounding across the stage and twisting his face into grins that turn into grimaces at the blink of an eye. His Iago is not subtle. Instead, Fennell relishes the character's sadism, gleefully wallowing in his poisonous words. Fennell directly approaches the audience during his monologues, as though recruiting us to be his co-conspirators.

Desdemona, played by Laura Hankin '10, gets the shortest end of the stick in a production that focuses so intensely on nuances of character. The doe-eyed maiden Desdemona is not nearly as fully formed a character as Othello, Iago or even Emilia (Dominique Salerno '10), and Hankin fades into the background against more compelling roles.

Salerno and Will Martinez '11 give solid anchoring performances as Emilia and Cassio, respectively. As two of Iago's chief pawns, these characters prove essential to each plot twist. Salerno is at her finest when Emilia's emotions crescendo, especially when she fully realizes the extent of Iago's treachery.

Unfortunately, there seemed to be a few technical glitches with the lighting in the production that I saw. The idea of playing with the brightness and dimness of the stage adds an interesting new dimension to the racial tensions of the show, but the brightness of the stage during each scene sometimes appeared to be random and not carefully chosen.

The most visually arresting element of the set appears near the end of the play, when a pair of translucent bed curtains descends from the ceiling. The murderous climax of the play takes place within the bed curtains, which finally cascade around Desdemona's dead body. The image is striking, but I sometimes found it difficult to see the action within the curtains. Part of this obfuscating effect is deliberate, but though the image was dramatic, I was disappointed not to be able to view the actors' full range of emotions during this crucial scene.

Sometimes I wished that Bello had pushed the envelope a tad further to probe some of the deeper subtexts. The production could have more thoroughly explored the sexual dynamics between Othello and Desdemona, whose chemistry stammers rather than smolders. Dinkins and Hankin kissed and petted at each other, but their affections felt more prim than pulsing.

All said, the excellent acting and wise staging choices in "Othello" provide a welcome reinvigoration of the original text. Bello's interpretation may not add new wrinkles to the ideas and themes behind "Othello," but by forcing us to pay attention to the raw, brute force of the words, she reminds us why Shakespeare became so universally beloved in the first place. In the wake of the recent presidential election, the racial tensions in "Othello" become even more intriguing. Bello wisely chose not to modernize the show to make it more topical, instead allowing the allusions to come through naturally. Now, more than ever, we should pay attention to Shakespeare's original language. If it ain't broke, why fix it?