othelloposter Although I’ve read Othello a couple of times and seen it on stage and silver screen a few more, it had been over a decade since I’d taken it in. But returning to it after all that time—as done by the Long Beach Shakespeare Company, our local Bard specialists—I was struck by something unexpected: it’s not as good as I remember.
Though I don’t have the taste for Shakespeare that I once did, his brilliance is undeniable. And yet after seeing this production of Othello, one of his (several) classics, I can’t help feeling that this is a case where the Bard shows a lack of restraint. Overwritten, I kept thinking during the three-hour show, overwrought. (This, by the way, coming from someone who’s generally a Shakespearean purist. When I see Hamlet (my fave), I want the full four-and-a-half hours, with nary a word cut.)
Unfortunately, L.B. Shakespeare’s staging seems to play into the script’s worst tendencies along these lines, heavy on the yelling and light on nuance. Maurice Shaw is able to give Othello the stateliness he needs for us to believe that this Moor has risen to become one of Venice’s favorite and most trusted sons, but as soon as his emotions get amped up, Shaw turns the knob to 8, with little room to go higher when he needs to and seemingly unable to dial it back when subtlety would better serve the moment.
Sometimes the rest of the cast fairs better—Erica Sims’s Desdemona stands out as a model of believability as her world unravels for no reason she can fathom—but the overall tone is so over the top that it seems director Helen Borgers must want it this way, which is one of the only major missteps I’ve ever seen Borgers make.
Certainly, my take on the production may not be universal, but it was interesting during the second intermission to eavesdrop on a conversation between two audience members on exactly this issue: one complained about the lack of nuance, while the other said she didn’t mind (and in so saying, half-conceding the point).
A strength of the show is Nicholas Law’s fight choreography. There were moments during two bouts of swordplay when I feared someone was going to get hurt. The play’s violence may be an area where the amped-up nature of the proceedings pays off. But it may be the only one.
To Shakespeare’s credit, Othello is way-ahead-of-its-time commentary on prejudice; and to his greater credit, the script does not linger there but moves on, ending up as an excellent exemplification of how people can gravely delude themselves about their knowledge of their fellow humans. Shakespeare may have been the first psycho-social artist. This a redoubtable achievement.
Even so, for me, Othello is neither one of his, nor LB Shakespeare’s, best.

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