A Must-See 'Othello' Opens at Chicago Shakespeare Theater

Chicago Shakespeare Theater has mounted a truly state-of-the-art production of one of the Bard's greatest tragedies, Othello, in its mainstage Courtyard Theater on Navy Pier.  Everything, from the acting to the designs to the elocution to the pacing, is top-notch and exemplary.  Now if they could just find a script worthy of all that theatrical expertise!

To start off, Derrick Lee Weeden as Othello is a marvel, the real deal, whose performance simply must be seen.  A veteran of more than 40 productions throughout 20 seasons at Oregon Shakespeare Festival (one of the world's finest Shakespeare theaters, a list in which Chicago Shakes is increasingly included), he is making his house debut here in a role to which he is perfectly matched.  If there were enough quality productions of Othello around, I am sure that Weeden could play the Moor exclusively and have a fine career doing so, but his resume boasts the full range of Shakespeare scripts and theaters, with forays into other classical plays as well as the work of contemporary black playwrights.  With his manly bearing, a voice worthy of smooth jazz, evening drive time radio, and with a superlative understanding of the role's every nuance, he is a find and worth probably twice what he is being paid.  His wild-eyed, incredulous stares of horror and his fits of jealousy, rage and epilepsy are equally matched by his gentleness toward his new bride and his regal, warrior's gait.  Simply put, he is a star.  Do not miss this performance.

Iago, that great, evil schemer who brings down Othello, himself, both their wives and several others with his unrelenting plot of revenge, is here portrayed by Paul Niebanck, also making his CST debut after earning an MFA from Yale, crafting numerous New York credits and working in a variety of theatrical periods on east coast stages.  His Iago is smart (too smart for his compatriots, really), handsome and sexy in a contained sort of way.  This is a man who uses his brains enough to know that he shouldn't let people see his brains at work.  Better to smile and chum it up, seduce his working class wife into doing anything and everything (she can't do better than he, can she?) and use his friends and co-workers as unwitting pawns in a game that takes over all their lives as insidiously as the plague.  He is softer spoken than one might expect, but every bit as forked of tongue as the slickest, prettiest Iago you can imagine.  No one has a chance.

The women come off only slightly less well.  Allison Batty as Desdemona is poised, affecting and well spoken, her character not as young or coltish as she might be, but every bit the young wife of a respected general.  Lesley Bevan as Emilia is slatternly as opposed to submissive in the early going, rising to tremendous heights of heroism and nobility by the end—alas, too late.  Fine work is also turned in here by house and Chicago favorite Sean Fortunato as Michael Cassio, Kurt Ehrmann as the Duke of Venice and especially John Hoogenakker as the lovesick, ill-fated Roderigo, making a noble young man out of a guy in love with a girl who doesn't know he exists, a guy who would do (and does do) anything to get her—a doomed pawn from the start, he doesn't even know it (or does he?).

The technical aspects of this production are first-rate.  The show is directed by Marti Maraden, an Artistic Director of the Stratford (Ontario) Shakespeare Festival, another of those top tier institutions with which CST is increasingly on par.  Christopher Akerlind's lighting is masterful, used to stunning effect at several moments and showing that he is one of the best lighting designers working in the field in the United States today.  The interplay of light, set and cast, always in service of the play, is quite remarkable indeed (dare I say, illuminating).  The set by Patrick Clark consists mainly of a clever series of shutters than move in and out to create the background in front of which tables and chairs come and go—it takes full advantage of the Courtyard Theater's Globe and Guthrie-derived stage architecture.  And the roughly Edwardian/Gilded Age costumes by Christina Poddubiuk, sword holsters and all, create clean, manly lines for the mostly male cast and elegant, softer silhouettes for the women—though I must say that I couldn't quite tell if there was a dramaturgical or historical reason for setting the show 100 years ago.  There is nothing wrong with a Shakespearean aesthetic that lets The Ballad of Baby Doe wander amidst a chorus line full of replicas of Madama Butterfly's Lt. Pinkerton—I just didn't understand it.

Other technical elements were superbly executed as well.  The sword-and-dagger play by fight choreographer Robin Farquhar was fully present, well-schooled and effective.  Composer Marc Desormeaux's incidental music was lovely, evocative, well-crafted and well-married to the text.  The work of vocal coach Christine Adair and text coach Larry Yando was evident throughout the play—every word, that is, every word, of the text was spoken fluently, effectively, with clear meaning, full control of the breath and mastery of the length of the poetic phrases, and that from every single one of the 17 actors listed.  This is no small achievement, but one that Chicago Shakes takes seriously to heart.

Now to the problem of the script!  Though one of Shakespeare's best-known (even beloved) tragedies, this playwright Will Shakespeare needs somebody to help him whip his themes and flowery verse into a clearer dramatic whole.  The backstory is a little confusing, and the denouement takes longer than it should.  I mean, if Othello likes Iago so much, why did Michael Cassio get the promotion?  If everyone in Venice has such a problem with Moors, how did Othello become their general without anyone lowering their racism a notch or two?  What did Iago do to become so trusted by, well, everybody?  Why doesn't Othello try to kill Desdemona earlier in the play?  (He has several opportunities to do so, and yet the playwright doesn't seem to mine these moments for their slasher/horror film possibilities of thrill and tension.  Hamlet-like, Othello just fails to act.)  Why doesn't Emilia speak up about that handkerchief to the right people?  And why, when all the cards are on the table, don't people die sooner?  The play takes four acts, after all, and those groundlings are standing!

On the other hand, any playwright who can take a plot about an older black man who marries a while girl without her family's knowledge, and then kills her in premeditated jealousy (not warranted by truth, mind you, but planted in his head by a jealous underling with an axe to grind), has a lot of promise, indeed.  That would be a tough sell for a playwright today, iambic pentameter or not, bawdy references or not.  For a play with several dead bodies lying around, there are a lot of serious themes here—jealousy of course, but also racism, interracial marriage, revenge, trust, war, foreign occupation, self-image, family and friendship and fitting in.

Obviously, as evidenced from Verdi to Hollywood, this play has a firm and well-deserved place in the canon of Western literature and thought.  It is as relevant today as it was at the time of its first known performance, in 1604.  The opening night audience of this Chicago Shakespeare Theater production was rapt with attention from first to last, fully sympathetic to the plight of everyone but Iago, even while applauding his Sweeney Todd-like moment of clarity at the end of Act 1, scene iii (accompanied by flashes of lightning) when he knows that his course of pure evil has been set in inexorable motion.  "At last, my arm is complete again!" declared the Barber.  "I have't. It is engend'red!" is Iago's equally bloodcurdling and triumphant cry.  There is no turning back, no one to stop the flow of blood and viciousness.  We are all helpless, pawns in a deliciously evil game of hate and revenge, jealousy and cold-blooded destruction.  Immortal Bard, indeed.  Go see Othello.  It is engend'red.

Othello, by William Shakespeare, directed by Marti Maraden, plays now through Sunday, April 6, 2008 at Chicago Shakespeare Theater on Navy Pier.  For further information and to purchase tickets, call the Box Office at 312-595-5600 or visit www.chicagoshakes.com.

Photos of Derrick Lee Weeden (left) and Paul Niebanck, and Lesley Bevan (above) and Allison Batty by Steve Leonard.