‘Othello,’ Shakespeare’s tragedy of jealousy and revenge, gets a strong staging at San Jose Stage.
The tragedy of “William Shakespeare’s “Othello” isn’t simply the violence that explodes in the play’s denouement. True devastation festers from the onset, when the play introduces Black Othello and white Desdemona’s love.
San Jose Stage Company’s production of “Othello” hits many correct notes, which have nothing to do with the smoking-hot jazz tunes that turn the stage into a 1950s film-noir world. Director Kenneth Kelleher does terrific things when sets are minimal, and there is nothing fancy here; a bare stage, sprays of light that touch up the surroundings, textured with appropriately-named venetian blinds. A chalk outline of a body not so subtly rests on the floor — foreshadowing of impending doom.
Iago is a duplicitous chess grandmaster, moving pawns all over the board to maximize the blood bath. His plots are not set against Othello alone; others are locked into his crosshairs. The foolish and weak Roderigo contrasts with suave and debonair Michael Cassio , each finding themselves enmeshed in Iago’s endgame. And Iago’s dutiful wife Emilia is tricked into the critical plot point which leads to the actions informed by Othello’s mind; he’s a man hellbent on avoiding cuckoldry.
Much of Shakespeare’s language is completed with supreme divinity in this production. Many iconic words tell this disturbing tale, including the various plots laid out by the brutal Iago. Miller’s expression of what it means to take residence in a misogynistic world always hits with aplomb, and her interpretation of Emilia’s signature monologue about husbands and wives — “though we have some grace, yet we have some revenge” — scintillates.
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