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One of Shakespeare’s most notorious villains loses much of his malevolence in this starry reimagining of Othello. Here, Machiavellian Iago is played by well-loved screen actor Toby Jones, who gives him all the looming menace of a peevish middle manager leaving a pass agg note on the work fridge. When this Iago makes racist jokes about David Harewood’s statesmanlike Othello, the audience laughs loudly – uncomfortably so, unsure who they’re meant to be rooting for. Still, when the chuckles die down, War Horse co-director Tom Morris’s production grows into its horror, building into a deeply nasty tale of murder and manipulation.
Morris’s setting here is modern-day Italy: a world of contrasts, where the indoor space of lavish gilding and Conclave-esque scarlet-cloaked officials gives way to beachy outdoor landscapes where wealthy women cavort in stylish resortwear. First, Moorish general Othello must justify his secret marriage to Desdemona before this repressive city’s authorities, in scenes that feel cramped and stodgy on a small stage cluttered with gold picture frames. Then, a storm comes to shake everything up. Ti Green’s ingenious set design makes the pieces of this world rise into the air and clank together like the wind-tossed boats of the feared Turkish invaders, before vanishing and leaving Othello to celebrate both his marriage and his military victory on a sun-drenched stage.
Harewood exudes warmth and dignity in these triumphant scenes. He’s got a long history with the role, as the first Black actor to play the role of Othello at the National Theatre in 1997. Revisiting the part as a more experienced actor, he’s got a self-contained, confident energy, rather than feeling like a rash warrior for Iago to wind up. This production’s Desdemona has got a new maturity too, with an American-accented Caitlin FitzGerald playing her as a woman with a past – a fellow outsider, every bit Othello’s equal. Morris prunes her lines here, stripping away her most obsequious moments and giving her vigorous comebacks to the accusations of her increasingly suspicious husband.
Even so, there’s a certain chemistry missing from their interactions – it doesn’t feel like this cool Desdemona is so sexually entranced by Othello that she can’t flee him, even when her life’s at stake. Morris is good at the moments of physical violence here – the whole audience winces together as we hear a spine snap, sharp as celery. The moments of psychological violence, less so. As Iago, Jones is completely convincing without channelling the inner darkness you’d expect from this destructive force. Instead, an excellent Vinette Robinson becomes the emotional heart of the play as Desdemona’s maid Emilia. “Men are but stomachs: they eat us, then they belch us,” she says, bitterly, before becoming consumed by her own quest for justice.
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An understated highlight of the play is the unsettling moment when the two broken women sing “The Willow Song”, with the play’s tragic folk ballad given a haunting setting by this play’s composer, PJ Harvey. This staging could do with more moments of lyricism and menace, to capture the insidious nature of the evil that patterns through it. Instead, it feels like an entertaining but ultimately unpersuasive take on Shakespeare’s story of an arch manipulator.
On at Theatre Royal Haymarket until 17 January; tickets here
