Othello, at National Theatre
Adrian Lester steals the show as an achingly human Othello in Nicholas Hytner’s production, says Tim Walker.
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Olivia Vinall as Desdemona, Adrian Lester as Othello at the National Theatre Photo: Alastair Muir
7:00AM BST 26 Apr 2013
Comment
There are few, if any, actors who are better at communicating youthful idealism than Adrian Lester. The engaging Brummie, who played Jack Stanton’s campaign director in the film Primary Colors, may now be 44 and sporting a few grey hairs, but he remains irredeemably boyish. He seems, on the face of it, an almost perverse choice to play the title role in Othello.
When the actor steps out on to the stage – slim, sharp-suited, correct and with a manner that seems almost eager to please – he is certainly the very antithesis of Laurence Olivier’s celebrated Moor: predatory, panther-like, sensual and an emphatically masculine leader of men, who is all too familiar with the world and its wicked ways.
If Lester does not grab the audience manfully by the throat in the opening scenes, then nor do his fellow players in Sir Nicholas Hytner’s production, which is played out against a backdrop of prosaic modern settings: the outside of a pub, a boardroom, even a lavatory.
There are a lot of irksome theatrical clichés: apart from the suits, Othello’s soldiers are in contemporary military uniform – the sort of gear that would not have looked out of place in the Gulf Wars – and there are the all but inevitable sounds of distant helicopter rotor blades.
The vast stage of the Olivier Theatre cries out, of course, for a widescreen treatment of this epic tale, but Vicki Mortimer, the designer, opts instead to confine the action to a succession of small, claustrophobic sets. Frankly, it is a production that seems for the first hour or so to be going out of its way to annoy.
In his first scenes, Rory Kinnear’s Iago, the devious ensign in Othello’s employ, comes across as the sort of blokey, affable clown that the actor’s late father Roy used to make a speciality. Olivia Vinall’s Desdemona, with her great mane of blonde hair and tight jeans, looks, meanwhile, like a provincial disco bunny, and Jonathan Bailey is an improbably glamorous and superficial Cassio.
Still, with more than three hours to play with, Sir Nicholas knows that he can afford to etch out the characters in Shakespeare’s tragedy at his own pace, and in time the tale stealthily begins to exert a hold.
Kinnear shows more of the “green-eyed monster” within and his desire to wreak vengeance upon the hapless Othello for having the temerity to promote Cassio over him.
A lot of it is done with a look – the odd, unsettling lapse in his studied bonhomie – and with a dangerous tone in his voice, when he says how much he “hates” the Moor. In his later scenes with Lester, Kinnear makes the all-powerful Othello look more and more like a lamb heading towards its inevitable slaughter. The chemistry between the two actors is intriguing: there is a complicated struggle for supremacy between them that recalls James Fox and Dirk Bogarde in The Servant.
Sir Nicholas’s use of utilitarian settings, rather off-putting at first, starts to pay off as it places the attention firmly on the players. The scene in which Othello, hiding behind the door of a lavatory cubicle, listens as Iago prompts Cassio into giving the impression that he’s having an affair with Desdemona, proves peculiarly effective. Lester’s look of injured pride gives way to a terrifying fury.
Bailey’s Cassio – far too fond of himself to start with – reveals a vulnerable, hopeless side towards the end, as he sees the tragedy unfold. Lyndsey Marshal is on very strong form, too, as Emilia, Iago’s wife, a woman who is struggling to make her way in a man’s world.
It is in what looks like a Portakabin, of all places, that Othello finally murders Desdemona and then himself, but I have never felt so emotionally involved in the scene before. The skimpy nightdress that Vinall wears makes her character seems all the more vulnerable: the bare flesh that she exposes as she struggles with her assailant makes the crushing out of her life all the more unbearable to witness.
This is a play where Iago can all too easily steal the honours from Othello, but it is, however, Lester who ultimately wins this monumental battle for supremacy between two great actors at the top of their game.
His is the most human Othello that I have ever seen, and the production is all the more powerful and affecting because of that.
One actually shed a tear for the old brute when, finally seeing the error of his ways, he takes his own life and dies “upon a kiss”.
To Sep 26; nationaltheatre.org.uk
Follow Seven on Twitter @TelegraphSeven
In his first scenes, Rory Kinnear’s Iago, the devious ensign in Othello’s employ, comes across as the sort of blokey, affable clown that the actor’s late father Roy used to make a speciality. Olivia Vinall’s Desdemona, with her great mane of blonde hair and tight jeans, looks, meanwhile, like a provincial disco bunny, and Jonathan Bailey is an improbably glamorous and superficial Cassio.
Still, with more than three hours to play with, Sir Nicholas knows that he can afford to etch out the characters in Shakespeare’s tragedy at his own pace, and in time the tale stealthily begins to exert a hold.
Kinnear shows more of the “green-eyed monster” within and his desire to wreak vengeance upon the hapless Othello for having the temerity to promote Cassio over him.
A lot of it is done with a look – the odd, unsettling lapse in his studied bonhomie – and with a dangerous tone in his voice, when he says how much he “hates” the Moor. In his later scenes with Lester, Kinnear makes the all-powerful Othello look more and more like a lamb heading towards its inevitable slaughter. The chemistry between the two actors is intriguing: there is a complicated struggle for supremacy between them that recalls James Fox and Dirk Bogarde in The Servant.
Sir Nicholas’s use of utilitarian settings, rather off-putting at first, starts to pay off as it places the attention firmly on the players. The scene in which Othello, hiding behind the door of a lavatory cubicle, listens as Iago prompts Cassio into giving the impression that he’s having an affair with Desdemona, proves peculiarly effective. Lester’s look of injured pride gives way to a terrifying fury.
Bailey’s Cassio – far too fond of himself to start with – reveals a vulnerable, hopeless side towards the end, as he sees the tragedy unfold. Lyndsey Marshal is on very strong form, too, as Emilia, Iago’s wife, a woman who is struggling to make her way in a man’s world.
It is in what looks like a Portakabin, of all places, that Othello finally murders Desdemona and then himself, but I have never felt so emotionally involved in the scene before. The skimpy nightdress that Vinall wears makes her character seems all the more vulnerable: the bare flesh that she exposes as she struggles with her assailant makes the crushing out of her life all the more unbearable to witness.
This is a play where Iago can all too easily steal the honours from Othello, but it is, however, Lester who ultimately wins this monumental battle for supremacy between two great actors at the top of their game.
His is the most human Othello that I have ever seen, and the production is all the more powerful and affecting because of that.
One actually shed a tear for the old brute when, finally seeing the error of his ways, he takes his own life and dies “upon a kiss”.
To Sep 26; nationaltheatre.org.uk
Follow Seven on Twitter @TelegraphSeven
