Othello' Distances Viewers 'Too Well'

Audiences at the Loeb Experimental Theater generally go in with patience, expecting something experimental. However, the capricious strangeness which looms over David Levine's production of "Othello" strikes a sour note, especially because mediocre acting fails to salvage the play.

At first, the play seems interesting enough: The Venice scenes occur on a long, narrow stage, and the scenes in Cyprus take place in the center of a circular audience. In the first scene, which does not appear in the script, three men holding lanterns look at Desdemona (Christina Voros) while she sleeps. The drumbeats that open the play lend a nice, cinematic sound.

But it's all downhill from there. When the lights come back on, lago (Erik Amblad) talks to Roderigo (Paul Siemens) over a game of chess. lago, Shakespeare's lines reveal, is angry with Othello for having denied him a promotion. Unfortunately, Amblad does not seem angry at all as he wields one or two inexpressive arm gestures again and again. The stage that seemed to have so much potential becomes a nuisance when actors turn around and throw unprojected, inaudible lines to about a third of the audience at a time. Every lighting change is accompanied by a melodramatic clang, and the actors have a precarious grasp on their lines.

When Othello (Bashir Salahuddin) enters wearing a T-shirt, things only get a little better. Salahuddin plays the Moor consistently as a casual, soft-spoken general, but his voice is often too soft and always unemotional. As he presents his case before the Duke, Othello explains a little too calmly why Desdemona loves him. Later, when he loses his temper with the drunken Cassio (Jed Silverstein), Salahuddin gets angry too quickly and for too short a time.

Like Salahuddin, Amblad speaks a little too casually to convey lago's calculating, evil character. The two actors' speaking styles turn some of the most popular speeches in Shakespeare into soft-spoken words with no meter or emotion behind them. "O, beware, my lord, of jealousy," says lago blandly, appearently oblivious to the meaning and treachery of his own lines.

As the play drags toward its conclusion, Othello, deceived by lago into thinking his wife has been unfaithful, kills both Desdemona and himself in an act of unconvincing rage. Although Jed Silverstein and Alexandra Marolachakis give good performances as the foolish but passionate Cassio and the submissive Emilia, this play has few redemptive qualities.

Instead, "Othello" features an eclectic gathering of horrible effects. Othello first enters from beneath an electronic Bud Lite sign. The sound, though well-prepared, goes sour when whimsical musical moments and a garish announcement of the Venetian victory accompanied by disco lay waste to Shakespeare's play. Two guards, listed as "Mechanicals" in the program, wear expressionless masks, and the Herald speaks his lines in a deliberate monotone. Iago's deception of Othello occurs before a projection of Magritte's painting, "The Wind and the Song," and, before the first intermission, an actor walks onto the stage with a sign reading, "Take your belongings with you," and collapses on stage.

The directing that went into "Othello" seems to have been a question of caprice rather than care. However, director David Levine is not a madman with connections; everything strange in the production contributes to an overall distance between the audience and the stage. The questionable acting is probably intended to prevent the audience from identifying with any characters; and the annoying music, projections, and other directorial decisions all alienate the audience from a once familiar play.

Unfortunately, this successfully defamiliarized production of "Othello" is not a good one. Levine sacrifices both vicarious appeal and smoothness when he casts lago as a nice, boring guy, Othello as a quiet, badly-dressed general, and several minor characters as masked, "mechanical" bores. A sense of alienation is easy to achieve in theater. What takes more work is putting together a meaningful and entertaining play. Levine's "Othello" distances viewers "not wisely but too well" so well that the audience shrinks somewhat after each intermission.