Othello

[MrJNLong]

Posted: 9/18/09 at 12:29am

I desperately would like to get my hands on a ticket for either show on OCtober 3rd. Does anyone know any way I can do that?
Has anyone seen the show yet?

[April Saul]

Posted: 9/18/09 at 11:25am

Hey Mr. Long--
I actually have a second row center ticket to Othello for that Saturday afternoon, and am thinking about selling it in the interests of being frugal. PM me if you are interested, and I can let you know what I decide to do...

[WOSQ]

Posted: 9/18/09 at 1:04pm

I was told this morning that the running time is 4:10.

The first act alone is 2:35.

This strikes me as unnecessary.

I see it tonight.

[MrJNLong]

Posted: 9/18/09 at 11:50pm

So...what did you think WOSQ?
April, I PM'd you.

[WOSQ]

Posted: 9/21/09 at 9:40am

L O N G and it did not need to be. There needed to be some cutting. There is repetition. Act One is 2:05-2:10 and there is a 20-25 minute interval because the entire audience has to pee. I'm not kidding. There was a long line at both restrooms the entire interval. Act Two is 1:35. You're out at 11:05.

I got the concept which sets the play in the very present day. Because there is nothing to reflect the sound out into the house except the rear wall of the theatre, everyone is miked. I also think that is part of the concept.

The amplification points out how many of the cast have sloppy, in some cases very sloppy, esses. "Casssiusss" is but an instance. I feel the moment the mikes were added a speech therapist ought to have been called. Seriously. Philip Seymour Hoffman does not have this ess not does the very talented woman playing Emilia. The other actors do have this problem to varying degrees.

Hoffman gives a solid performance as does Emilia and the woman who plays a hybrid character here named Bianca.

Othello lacks command. He is a general and this actor just does not have that ease of power that any leader needs to have. It is a tricky role because his tragic flaw is his blindness about Iago, and this Othello seems too oblivious about a lot of things. As for the Desdemona, she is just not good. The actress is way too passive. There is nothing there to murder.

So I felt this was a mixed bag. An A- for concept and a C for execution. I do have to add that there were those in the audience who stood up and cheered at the end. There were also a number of empty seats after intermission.

And I repeat, this is too damn long for no reason.

[Yankeefan007]

Posted: 9/21/09 at 9:44am

What makes it so long? OTHELLO isn't a very long play. The Theater for a New Audience production ran 2:45 with intermission.

[theaterkid1015]

Posted: 9/21/09 at 2:09pm

The pacing drags this show out. There are so many pauses and just generally very slow speech. I honestly can't think of a better way to put it.

[Roscoe]

Posted: 9/21/09 at 2:36pm

Has Hoffman learned his lines yet? When the play opened in Vienna he had to ask to be prompted more than once.

Not just in previews. On opening night.

[scott68]

Posted: 9/22/09 at 2:59pm

To me, the show was just dead in the water. There were plenty of directorial choices being made, but none of them seemed to come together.

First, the show was just too damn long. The first act worked for me, despite the length, but it meant that going into the second act, I really had to work to try to care about what was happening.

The staging really didn't seem to fit the space they had to work with. The central "bed" was interesting, but didn't seem to accomplish anything, and was too small to make much of an impact. The people in chairs on stage when they made "exits" could have worked if they'd kept to it, but why only do that some of the time and use actual exits for the rest?

The actors all seemed to have talent, but they weren't really directed. PSH made an impression as Iago, but it seemed like he decided, "This is how I'm playing Iago, the hell with the play the rest of you seem to be in." Also, the shouting was just too much. He was much more effective in his quieter, more sinister scenes with Roderigo. John Ortiz somewhat pulled off the descent into jealousy, but I definitely didn't buy him as a great general, or even as a military man at all. The Duke was the only one in the play who even seemed remotely... militant, I guess?

The women fared a little better. Desdemona was sort of a walking blank in the first act, but she came more into her own in the second act. (And what's with the Michelle Obama dress? I understand it's supposed to be ~modern, but what possible connection is there with Desdemona and the First Lady, especially when the program notes mention that parallels were supposed to be drawn between the Duke and Obama?) The actress who played Emelia came off strongest of the whole bunch, whether because she was directed better or because she just connected to her character more. Her speech towards the end about women's place in the world was the strongest part of the entire play.

Overall, some interesting ideas and talented people, but in the end it just seemed like Peter Sellars just threw everything at the wall and used what stuck.

[WOSQ]

Posted: 9/22/09 at 3:15pm

Scott68,
I forgot about the production notes - six large pages handed out even before you get your Playbill. This to me is never a good sign. It signifies that what you are about to see is going muddy.

I really don't do more than skim a program any more. If the play can't tell you by itself what it is and what it concerns, then it can be said to have failed. This is a harsh standard, but effective.

[scott68]

Posted: 9/22/09 at 3:32pm

I agree, and reading the production notes just made me more confused. Casting the Duke as a young black dude (Obama), filling out his "cabinet" (aka cast) with three Latinos because they're a rising group of the American population, making Othello not black so his blackness isn't the thing isolating him, and having Iago and Desdemona as "the last two white people on the planet"?!?!? (That's a direct quote.) If you have to explain things that much and still have them make little sense, we've got a problem.

[spiderdj82]

Posted: 9/22/09 at 3:46pm

Wait! Othello isn't black? *confused face*

[scott68]

Posted: 9/22/09 at 3:50pm

The production notes are online here: http://publictheater.org/content/view/189

Page 2, Peter Sellars's notes, are the real LOLtastic bits.

[spiderdj82]

Posted: 9/22/09 at 3:50pm

Okay. I always assumed Othello was supposed to be black, but according to wikipedia (the source of all sources):

"E.A.J. Honigmann, the editor of the Arden Shakespeare edition, concludes that Othello's race is ambiguous. Various uses of the word 'black' (for example, "Haply for I am black") are insufficient evidence, Honigmann argues, since 'black' could simply mean 'swarthy' to Elizabethans.[12] Moreover, Iago twice uses the word 'Barbary' or 'Barbarian' to refer to Othello, seemingly referring to the Barbary coast inhabited by the "tawny" Moors. Roderigo calls Othello 'the thicklips', which seems to refer to European conceptions of Sub-Saharan African physiognomy, but Honigmann counters that, arguing that because these comments are all insults, they need not be taken literally."


Link

[bwayrose2]

Posted: 9/23/09 at 12:21pm

I guess I'm in the minority when I say I loved it. It was different and contemporary and I thought Phillip Seymour Hoffman was fantastic. Never thought of Iago as being played that way, but it totally worked. I could see how because of their close friendship, Othello would believe everything he said. He was certainly the most sincere Iago I have seen. I liked the pace of it because it allowed every word to be heard (except Roderigo, who wasn't a very good actor.) I thought Desdemona was directed in a very specific, stylized manner and it reminded me of seeing plays in France and Austria where long experimental productions are par for the course. Peter Sellars is not a director everyone will like, but I find him fascinating, even genius at times and maybe I went into OTHELLO with low expectations, but I enjoyed it very much.

I thought the Latino Othello was a nice contemporary touch, though in all honesty, this version of the play should have been called "Iago" because Mr. Hoffman certainly was the center and focus of the play. Maybe it's hard to have an actor of his caliber in what seemed to be intended to be an ensemble play. I agree with the poster who said Emilia (Liza Colon) was very good. She really provided a nice emotional touch to the second half. It was a little disconcerting to have the Latino Othello treat his Latina maid the way he does at the end.

[dave1606]

Posted: 9/23/09 at 2:38pm

I loathed every second of this show. People were walking about, starting at the hour mark, and continuing up until the end of the VERY long first act.

I am curious though, why no reviews? didn't bww just post pictures from the opening?

[lull89]

Posted: 9/23/09 at 5:39pm

The NY Times opening soon section (from http://theater.nytimes.com/pages/theater/index.html) lists it as opening September 27th, so I'd look for reviews around then. Don't know why they had an "opening" already, though.

[WOSQ]

Posted: 9/24/09 at 9:21am

I was wondering about the "opening" myself. I wouldn't have posted so detailed an opinion had I known the reviews would be delayed.

I saw the pix that were labelled opening and just assumed....

[BroadwayAbridged]

Posted: 9/24/09 at 11:44am

Agreed with how terrible and long this was. When you add that much empty time into a play, something's going to sacrifice. In this case it was the pacing. So much pausing, and walking around, and lack of urgency. The amount of empty seats at intermission was ridiculous.

I did like Hoffman for the most part, however I did not receive this:
http://publictheater.org/content/view/188/
with my program at all the night I went, neither did anybody around me. I'd say that's a problem, but--was the play supposed to only make sense if I read seven pages of "explanation material"?