Timeless passions

Some linguistic simplifications and nips and tucks make this Othello more accessible. And themes of deceit, jealousy and greed remain.

By John Fleming
Published May 23, 2007

ST. PETERSBURG — A director of Shakespeare has two decisions to make right off the bat: what to cut in the script, and where to set the play.

Othello is one of Shakespeare's tightest plays, but performing it uncut would run well over three hours. So Drew Fracher got out his editing pencil to direct the tragedy for American Stage, hoping to trim it to about two hours, 40 minutes. He was still introducing some cuts to the cast in rehearsal a week before opening.

"I think it's a very rarefied audience in 2007 that wants to be in the theater for over three hours, " Fracher said. "That's just the world we live in. Shakespeare lived in a very different world. I don't think I've done anything harmful to the play. I'm all about pace and an active experience. I just don't want people standing around talking to each other."

Then there's the challenge of Shakespeare's language and how to make it accessible to a modern audience. "My goal is to make it as naturalistic as possible, " Fracher said. "To get away from that overblown, highfalutin language. We work really hard to be conversational."

Fracher, 50, who lives in the Cincinnati area, is directing his first Othello. His staging keeps the play where Shakespeare set it - in Venice and Cyprus - but Othello, Iago, Desdemona and the rest of the characters will be in modern dress.

"We've created a world that isn't anywhere specific, " he said. "Venice will be soft, upscale. Cyprus will be a dark, shadowy place. We've talked about the Venetians as an occupying force in Cyprus, but it's not Iraq. I've studiously not put them in desert camouflage or put them in a Middle Eastern place. Instead, Cyprus is a dangerous, sort of urban setting."

There surely have been recent productions of Othello that resonated with the politics and war of the Middle East. The tragic title character, of course, is a Moor from North Africa, and it would be logical to assume that he is a Muslim.

"I have stayed away from that like crazy, because I just don't want to go there, " Fracher said. "I think you could, and it would be very interesting. But not this time. I'd want to spend another year with the text and another year thinking about it before I landed on that."

Although Othello is black, Shakespeare does not belabor the race angle. "I think the play is about class more than race, " Fracher said. "Naturally race enters into it. In Elizabethan England, Othello's race would have been inherently understood. But it's mainly a play about Othello, a mercenary military leader, reaching for status through his marriage to Desdemona, the daughter of a senator. On another level it's also about status, because when Iago is passed over to be lieutenant, he sets out to destroy Othello."

J. Bernard Calloway, who plays Othello, is black, but there have been legendary interpretations by white actors who did the role in blackface, including Orson Welles and Laurence Olivier. "But that was a long time ago, " Fracher said. "I think you'd have tough time today not casting a black actor in the role."

Ten years ago, there was a successful production at the Shakespeare Theatre of Washington in which a white actor, Patrick Stewart (Star Trek), played Othello with an all-black cast. In a more conventional vein, Laurence Fishburne starred in the 1995 movie Othello, with Kenneth Branagh as Iago. A 2001 movie called O updated Shakespeare's story to take place in an all-white high school in Charleston, S.C., with Mekhi Phifer in the Othello role (as a star basketball player).

For all its potency as a commentary on race, Othello is first and foremost a study in sexual jealousy, culminating in the Moor's smothering his wife in bed. In the 19th century, theaters typically played the murder scene offstage to avoid offending delicate sensibilities, but not today. "We're doing it full-blown right in front of you, " Fracher said.

Christopher Swan plays Iago, fresh off his performance as the sadistic dentist in the American Stage in the Park production of Little Shop of Horrors. Iago, in planting the seed of Desdemona's infidelity in the mind of Othello, may have more lines than any Shakespearean character but Hamlet. Fracher likens the diabolical ensign to a neo-Nazi skinhead.

"Chris and I spend a lot of time talking about how Iago ended up where he is and why he's doing these things, " the director said. "I think this is the kind of guy who's going to land in the military doing very well for himself or in jail. He's a textbook psychopath. He's charming. He does things full out. And he lies without any moral center whatsoever.

"He is a very damaged individual. His childhood was probably pretty seriously ugly. The super max prisons are full of guys like this."

The Othello cast also includes Fracher's wife, Sherman, who plays Iago's wife, Emilia. "She's really easy to work with, " the director said. "It's about the only time she does what I tell her to do."

John Fleming can be reached at (727) 893-8716 or fleming@sptimes.com.

Othello

Shakespeare's tragedy opens Friday and runs through June 17 at American Stage, 211 Third St. S, St. Petersburg. Performances are at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday, 8 p.m. Friday, 3 and 8 p.m. Saturday and 3 p.m. Sunday. $22-$35. Student rush tickets are $10, 30 minutes before curtain. "Pay what you can nights" are June 5 and 12. There is a preview at 7:30 tonight. (727) 823-7529; www.americanstage.org.

[Last modified May 23, 2007, 15:13:20]