Shakespeare’s military genius is reborn as a 21st-century detective chief inspector in Ola Ince’s modern-dress production. Iago is his sergeant, spurred into a hateful campaign against the “guvnor” because of Cassio’s promotion over his own. Unfolding in New Scotland Yard, amid a hostile white police force, it might seem gimmicky and designed to appeal to Jed Mercurio fans. But this is inspired revisionism by Ince, who brazenly turned Romeo and Juliet into a violent comedy, of sorts, with signs about knife crime, also at the Globe theatre.
Othello (Ken Nwosu) is initially led on in handcuffs. Characters wear full body armour, rights are read and radioed messages encapsulate both the racism of the outside world and Othello’s inner, or internalised, torments. The framing as a police procedural coheres well with the world of Shakespeare’s play and carries the chilling echoes of a Met still grappling with institutionalised racism and misogyny within its ranks – as well as distant resonances of the murder of George Floyd.
There are also cheeky updates to the text, with references to Desdemona (Poppy Gilbert) as a “Chelsea girl” and Cassio (Oli Higginson) an “Eton boy”. Roderigo (Sam Swann) is a pizza delivery worker. But a bigger concept is at work in the production. Alongside Nwosu’s Othello is his subconscious self, played by Ira Mandela Siobhan, who comes to the fore in conflicted or tortured moments, and expresses himself mostly through movement.
Last year, a version of Othello at Riverside Studios replicated Iago’s psyche using three actors, with mixed results. The intention behind Ince’s production has a more solid foundation – to humanise Othello and his psychological unpinning. The two Othellos are at their most powerful when they are engaging with each other, fighting, pushing and punching. But sometimes Siobhan merely looks on, drifting or redundant. More problematically, the realism of the police procedural butts up against this more surreal, expressionistic element, and sometimes jars. Nwosu makes Othello convincingly modern but the divided self also seems to take away from the freight of his performance.
And while it is clear this is a misogynistic police force that speaks of women – and specifically Desdemona – with suspicion, and toxic masculinity is well conveyed with macho drinking games and laddish chants, the central murder seems like a crime of passion, driven by Othello’s mental fracturing. Desdemona is fearless in the face of Othello’s controlling jealousy, even when he strikes her, and we do not feel her fear until her very final moments. Ralph Davis makes for a strong Iago, compelling in his ordinariness, and Higginson’s Cassio is upstanding without being priggish.
There is great musicality too, with songs and a score that is jazzy at times, foreboding at others. Ultimately, the concepts lead to a surfeit of ideas, pushing against each other. At over three hours, the tension drops, although the play never loses its potency and offers a genuinely new, exciting experience.
• At Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, London, until 13 April.
