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K. sez:
Chicago Shakespeare’s celebration of the Bard’s quadracentenary begins with a misfire. Othello as directed by Jonathan Munby is a classic example of a big bad concept mugging a defenseless script. Munby’s decision to set the play among contemporary khaki-clad GIs adds nothing to our understanding of the play and interferes with our seeing it—sometimes literally, as when the huge boxes representing various portions of the army camp are moved around so they upstage the actors. Amidst all this pushing and shoving and singing of hip-hop, there’s little sign of the play as an interaction among interesting characters nor as an indictment of racism.
There’s an occasional strong scene—the first one in which Iago (the otherwise misdirected Michael Milligan) shares his suspicions with Othello (James Vincent Meredith, who deserves to lead a better production than this); the drunk scene of Michael Cassio (Luigi Sottile); the final encounter between Othello and Desdemona (Bethany Jillard). But whenever there are more than two people on the stage there’s a complete collapse of focus, the sure sign of a director too busy with his concept to bother with his actors. And there’s so much foreshadowing that it becomes comic, as each actor proclaims “honest Iago” with such force the set nearly falls over. The fact that Iago is able to fool Othello and the rest is not supposed to be funny: it’s the source of the play’s tragedy.
If you’re interested in the play, wait until spring when you’ll find the Q Brothers’ Othello: The Remix , which notwithstanding its innovative hip-hop rendition is far truer to the original than this.
Angela Tallis March 3, 2016 at 10:09 am Lunch at Riva was excellent. As a season ticket-holder, I hoped your evaluation was wrong. It wasn’t. Fragments shored against our ruins: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pz-xoMGLVvY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJDo-GHN_Kk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjq8RUjALPw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F96DlM3N5KQß https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFeYy0dIS-k
Lunch at Riva was excellent. As a season ticket-holder, I hoped your evaluation was wrong. It wasn’t.
Fragments shored against our ruins: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pz-xoMGLVvY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJDo-GHN_Kk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjq8RUjALPw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F96DlM3N5KQß https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFeYy0dIS-k
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Welcome to the on-line home of the Dueling Critics, Kelly Kleiman and Jonathan Abarbanel. Here you'll find the Critics' weekly conversations about Chicago theater. These verbal battles are broadcast every Sunday morning on "The Arts Section," WDCB's on-air culture magazine. Tune in to 90.9 FM to hear the Critics going at it.
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Kelly Kleiman at the Huffington Post Jonathan Abarbanel at the Windy City Times