First time I saw Denzel Washington do Shakespeare it was free. Central Park, 1990: He was a stone-cold Richard III worth waiting hours for at the Delacorte. Thirty-five years on, I still get to see him declaim the Bard gratis—through the privilege of a press comp. It would be unaffordable otherwise. Perhaps you’ve read about the extortionate prices at Broadway’s latest Othello: $921 for the mezz?! Much has changed since the summer Washington gave his crookback Richard. For one thing, people are willing to part with much greater sums to ogle celebrities in the flesh. But whereas Denzel then was hungry and had something to prove, now he’s a megastar doing his best, we must suppose, in a maddeningly bland production.
It doesn’t hurt when Washington stars in a bad movie. You pay $15, he snaps a couple dozen bad guys’ necks, you forget it on the subway. But to see him rush numbly through Othello’s blood-chilling poetry before he strangles the woman he loves is to feel robbed of tragic beauty—while seeing an actor filched of the chance to plumb a text and shatter an audience.
If you talked to any of your oligarch friends who attended this Othello, you know that director Kenny Leon’s big concept appears to be: What if Venetians spokerealfastallthetime? Theater geeks know the “speed-through”—when actors gather pre-curtain and do lines crazy fast, to bolster memory and ensemble spirit. Did we arrive at the Barrymore Theatre an hour early?
When the other name jolting the box office—Jake Gyllenhaal—takes pauses in articulating Iago’s plan to poison Othello’s mind with thoughts of jealousy, you lean forward, gratefully. But it’s only a blip. Back to blizzard of lingo that’s 400 years old and needs interpretation and vocal attack to land properly on the ear.
The velocity denies us the ironic echoes that even the intelligent Gyllenhaal runs roughshod over. Iago is duping a Venetian playboy named Rodrigo (Anthony Michael Lopez) with promises of setting him up with the beautiful Desdemona (Molly Osbourne)—even though she just married Washington’s Moor. At one point, when Rodrigo sighs that the woman is “blessed,” Iago cynically debunks the sentiment (“blessed fig’s end!”). Later, when Iago urges the disgraced Cassio (Andrew Burnap) to appeal to Desdemona so she may influence her husband the general, he notes, “She is of so free, so kind, so apt, so blessed a disposition.” Shakespeare has given you a cookie. Any actor would (subtly) indicate Iago wickedly recycling the word. That’s his M.O.: He observes, he steals, he uses people’s words and frailties against them. Gyllenhaal ignores the echo.
And so, this is a remarkably unmusical rendering of Shakespeare. Very few characters enjoy the language they have. The actual music we hear at the top of the show and during the transition into the bedroom murder scene is pure kitsch: Andrea Bocelli’s saccharine cover of the 1920 love song, “Amapola.” The orchestration is lushly purple, like late Sinatra. The title means “poppy.” Some allusion to Iago’s gloating over Othello’s distress suspecting Desdemona unfaithful? “Not poppy nor mandragora / Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world / Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep / Which thou owedst yesterday.” One has time to mull over minor details when Leon breezes over the big picture.
It’s a rare version of the tragedy in which supporting actors shine, but here we are. Lopez doesn’t overdo the fop comedy of Rodrigo, achieving moments of dignity that make his death almost pitiable. As golden boy Cassio, Burnap is crisp and appealing, his drunk scene and the aftermath quite touching. It’s hard to find a straight-up hero in Othello, but Iago’s plain-spoken wife, Emilia, comes close. And Kimber Elayne Sprawl brings a dry, no-b.s. wit to Emilia’s skeptical view of gender roles. Molly Osbourne crafts a more mature and poised Desdemona, but she too suffers from a director’s lead foot on the pedal.
Washington has too much natural charisma and physical grace to not excite interest and throw sparks, and his imploding descent into murderous jealousy can be scarily contained. The actor brings grace notes of sweetness and vulnerability in first half, such as when Othello spontaneously embraces Desdemona’s father, despite the old man’s outrage over his daughter marrying a Black man. But it’s hard to discern a unique, dimensional Moor here, just as Gyllenhaal’s shaved-head Iago is a malevolent, racist force, just not a credible human being. This world is colorless and impersonal (Derek McLane’s towering gray columns on wheels), and so are its inhabitants. At the top, a supertitle says the story takes place in some unspecified tomorrow. How I longed to jump to that near future, in which Washington has taken his bow and I’m sipping a martini at Joe Allen.
Othello | 2hrs 35 mins. One intermission. | Ethel Barrymore Theatre | 243 West 47th Street | 212-239-6200 | Buy Tickets Here
