Othello starring David Harewood, Toby Jones and Caitlin FitzGerald Review
- Alice White
- 7 hours ago
- 2 min read
Tom Morris’ contemporary revival runs at Theatre Royal Haymarket until 17 January
In 1997, David Harewood was – shamingly, given the lateness of the date – the first Black actor to play Othello at the National Theatre. It’s his misfortune that in returning to the part some three decades on, when he felt he had more to give, he has landed in this disjointed production by director Tom Morris.
Its principal problem is that all its stars seem to be starring in a different version of Shakespeare’s play. Harewood is a tragic hero, a dignified warrior undone by his own vulnerability; Toby Jones, as his nemesis Iago, seems to be playing a stock Medieval villain, all surface evil. And Caitlin Fitzgerald as Othello’s wife Desdemona is American. Every side of this doomed triangle feels as if it is pulling in a different direction.
It looks handsome enough. Ti Green’s set mimics the gleaming, gold proscenium arch of the Haymarket itself to compose the action within a series of frames when it begins in Venice. They are ripped away as the plot takes Othello to Cyprus, where Iago stokes his jealousy and his suspicion to the point where he kills his wife for having a non-existent affair. The final acts are played with the marital bed in the background on a strip-backed stage, lit from the side by Richard Howell’s sensuous and sensitive lighting. The costumes go on a similar journey from iridescent greens and rich reds to the subtle hues of autumn. There’s also increasingly ominous music from PJ Harvey and Jon Nicholls.
It’s clearly intentional that early on, Othello all but ignores Jones’ Iago, who is deliberately dressed in the simplest uniform while Cassio peacocks in white. But this undermines the relationship between them: if they do not rely on one another as military men, then the power Iago exerts becomes confusing. And Jones, who is so good at portraying the everyman, flounders as Iago, making his evil one-note, and his plain exterior characterless.
Only once, when he marches off in a square formation – having planted the seed of suspicion in Othello’s mind – and leaves him writhing on the floor in agony, does Morris find an interesting physical expression for the strange bond between them. As for Fitzgerald’s Desdemona, she is attractive but bland, seeming to skate along the surface of the role without ever quite finding a subtext in the language or action.
All in all, it is a curiously old-fashioned and superficial version of a play that cries out for a powerful vision. A disappointment.
