Downstage Theatre
May 12-June 9 | Reviewed by Ewan Kingston

AT THE CLIMAX of Shakespeare’s Othello, the Moor muses aloud on his plan to kill Desdemona. He kisses her while she sleeps, ceases, then utters “one more, one more” before kissing her again. When some of the school students watching Jonathon Hendry’s production at Downstage saw that action, they chuckled, rather than wept. I had sympathy for them. I was not emotionally hooked by this play. All night my attention had periodically wriggled free of the action on stage. It was no wonder Othello’s struggle between devotion and rage didn’t hit us where it hurt.

What went wrong? For a start, the New Zealand setting. The time of the piece was left (deliberately?) vague, and the details of geography – Sydney working as Venice, Cyprus becoming Kororareka/Russell - were also only supplied to those who chose to buy a programme and read not the directors, but the Set Designer’s note. Instead of making the play more ‘evocative’ this ambiguity meant we were constantly scanning the performance for non-existent clues about the exact time and place of the action.

Even if we had been explicitly told the time and place, 1840’s Kororareka would still have been a poor choice. Why indeed was it chosen? Surely not to draw political parallels between distant events: like most tragedies, Othello is fundamentally about the internal, not the external, events. No, the reason Costume Designer Lesley Burkes-Harding gave was to “present a very old play within a world that we as a modern audience are able to empathise with”. The trouble is, I believe, the ambitious project gave our historical imagination undue credit. Richard Eyre was able to set Richard III in a mythical fascist state, because the world of 1930’s fascism is highly tangible and culturally accessible to most audiences. The world of colonial troops stationed in Russell, (while obviously geographically closer) is harder for most of us to grasp, let alone empathise with. We know it was dirty – “the hell-hole” of the pacific – but for most of us our understanding stops there. What little we are aware of is tainted by cultural cringe. The result is, while we shamefully try to remember what we have read or heard about the period, we miss the joy of Othello and Desdemona’s reuniting, or the desperation of Cassio’s attempts to regain his reputation.

If this wasn’t enough, we are distracted some more: by the lighting, constantly splashing onto the audience, creating shadows that actors labour to avoid; by fluffed lines; and by the odd selection of accents. Moriarty’s use of haka and wero was a bold and innovative idea, technically very-well executed, but distracting in another way. Maybe I was missing something, but as Othello became increasingly Maori while simultaneously descending into jealous rage, I felt the production was dealing in out-dated and dangerous stereotypes. By contrast, little in Othello hinted at the brutality of the British colonial psyche.

Maybe these distractions could have been overcome if the drama itself had shone through. Unfortunately, it only glimmered. Moriarty’s Othello, pre-fall, was superb: magnificent, temperate, regal. After the villainous Iago “serves his term upon him” his descent into jealousy is often fearsome to watch, if perhaps too rapid and unrestrained.
Madeleine Hyland skilfully played Desdemona as a strong woman in denial about her husband, rather than the traditional naďve sweetie. This strength allowed the early scenes with the newly-wed Othello and Desdemona to overflow with passion and excitement.

Peter Hambleton’s Iago was disappointing. We caught glimpses of the seductive friendliness of his public face. Less prominent was the depiction of Iago’s tortured, twisted private soul: I never watched his thoughts “gnaw his innards” like a “poisonous mineral”. Iago’s character is most potent when we can watch him deceive others without being deceived ourselves. Hambleton’s Iago didn’t have that extra layer. What I saw was more often a back-slapping geezer than a tormented criminal mastermind.

The supporting cast was well formed; Simon Vincent (although we lost some of his lines) was a flamboyant and emotional Cassio. Jennifer Ludlam as no-nonsense Emilia gained our trust and sympathy. The set was primal, minimal and earthy, and the sound design often inspired, with beautiful, understated natural sounds of nature trickling from Downstage’s speakers. But it was not enough.

Hendry has mentioned that the idea for this production of Othello came to him while visiting a historic site in the Bay of Islands. With its vague, confusing, distracting, and culturally risky elements, there is a part of me that wishes he had left the idea on a beach somewhere up there, along with his footprints.

See also:
» Scars on the Heart: Jim Moriarty