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Photo by David Levy
Heather Wood* as Desdemona and Billy Eugene Jones* as Othello in Shakespeare Festival's Othello
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Director Bruce Longworth speaks with Montano (Christopher Hickey*) and Iago (Justin Blanchard*)
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Montano (Christopher Hickey*) and Cassio (Joshua Thomas) lock swords.
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Joshua Thomas as Cassio charges through his fight scene.
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Iago (Justin Blanchard*) surely up to some sort of deceit.
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Cassio (Joshua Thomas) charges Montano (Christopher Hickey*).
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Roderigo (Rudi Utter*) discusses fight scene technicalities with Cassio (Joshua Thomas).
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Cassio (Joshua Thomas) hurls Roderigo (Rudi Utter*) across the stage.
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Cassio (Joshua Thomas) kicks Roderigo (Rudi Utter*).
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Montano (Christopher Hickey) intervenes as Iago (Justin Blanchard*) looks on.
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Montano (Christopher Hickey*) tries to avoid getting stabbed.
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Confusion breaks out with Cassio (Joshua Thomas) wounded, Iago (Justin Blanchard*) "helping" him, and Eric Dean White and Lodovico (Jerry Vogel*) coming across the scene. While Roderigo (Rudi Utter) cries for help.
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The Shakespeare Fest Artistic Team watches rehearsals.
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Bruce Longworth (Director) goes over the scene with the actors while Rudi Utter* (Roderigo) practices a little meditation.
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Othello (Billy Eugene Jones*) looks on as a wounded Cassio (Joshua Thomas) writhes on the ground.
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Iago (Justin Blanchard*) makes more diabolical plots.
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Ensemble character Eric Dean White and Lodovico (Jerry Vogel*) cautiously look around.
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Lodovico (Jerry Vogel*) and Eric Dean White discover Roderigo (Rudi Utter*) and Iago (Justin Blanchard*).
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Everyone pauses to go over the scene again with director Bruce Longworth.
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Cassio (Joshua Thomas) with his leg bound is being helped by his lady friend (and lady of the night) Bianca (Cherie Corinne Rice*) while Iago (Justin Blanchard*) waits for direction for Bruce Longworth. Jerry Vogel* and Eric Dean White look on.
O! beware, my lord, of jealousy;
It is the green-ey'd monster which doth mock
The meat it feeds on.
—Iago, Act III, scene iii
Is there anything more tragic than Othello? Poor Desdemona dies, essentially over a misplaced handkerchief. Othello is an army general and African Moor who marries Desdemona, the daughter of a high society Venetian family. Othello’s ensign Iago convinces him that Desdemona has been unfaithful, playing on insecurities about his race and Desdemona’s lost handkerchief. Iago’s lying treachery destroys nearly everyone it ensnares.
Though masterfully written, Iago's treachery and Othello's anger are probably the biggest hindrances to appreciating the play. We never really know why Iago is so evil or Othello so easily misled. So Shakespeare Festival St. Louis let us check out rehearsals to find out how they’re staging Shakespeare’s most tragic tragedy.
Pray you, in your letters,
When you shall these unlucky deeds relate,
Speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate
—Othello, Act V, Scene ii
Director Bruce Longworth is explaining some points in a fight scene when I arrive at the rehearsal space in Union Avenue Church. The head of the Acting Program at the Conservatory of Theatre Arts at Webster University, Longworth has the steady, serious calm you'd expect from the director of a tragedy. He even directed Hamlet for the Shakespeare Festival in 2010, though he says he likes all of Shakespeare, not just the tragedies.
So what made him agree to do Othello? “I think the themes in this play, the issues of this play are very timely,” he explains. So Longworth didn’t want to set his play in a fairy-tale past, but he also didn’t want to set it today and have the war between Venice and Turkey that kicks off the play become a political statement about America’s current wars.
He settled on 1912 as a happy middle. There also was a real war between Italy and Turkey at the time. “I like to hang my hat on something that actually did happen,” he explains with a laugh. The costumes, props and even how the actor’s salute and behave has all been tweaked to reflect 1912 standards.
But the realism doesn't stop with the setting. “I want to make Othello recognizable to people when they come see the play,” explains Billy Eugene Jones* who plays Othello. “So they don’t just see someone who’s irrational and hot-headed, but they see him slowly unraveling.” Jones and Longworth have been finding moments of doubt in the play to tease out how Othello wrestles with his jealousy. “The danger of the role is to have people not understand him and to go away saying, ‘Oh that was just some crazy black man who couldn’t think for himself,'” says Jones.
Heather Wood,* who plays Desdemona, is taking the same approach. “I don’t know what it’s like to be married to a General, but I certainly do know what it’s like to be head over heels infatuated with somebody,” she says. "You always have to find the things you can identify with and go from there."
O damn’d Iago! O inhuman dog!
—Roderigo, Act V, scene i
Despite the title, this is really Iago's play. “In this play, the majority of the soliloquies belong to the villain," Longworth says. "[We] feel bound to this guy, who is horrible, but there’s something fascinating about it because he’s so good at being bad.”
That’s how it is in rehearsal anyway. Cassio (Joshua Thomas), Roderigo (Rudi Utter*), and Montano (Christopher Hickey*) are all fighting, shouting, and locking swords. But your eyes follow Iago (Justin Blanchard*) skirting the fringes with a smirk watching his treachery unfold.
* Denotes member, Actors’ Equity Association
Shakespeare Festival Rehearsals for Othello
Text and photos By Rosalind Early
