Giles Terera with Rosy McEwen
(Picture: Myah Jeffers)Giles Terera is a superb and mercurial actor, one of our finest. After galvanizing turns in Hamilton, Death of England and Blues for an Alabama Sky – to name just a recent few in a career covering decades – he brings force, delicacy and dignity to Shakespeare’s traduced Moor in this powerful, monochromatic staging.
Clint Dyer, the first black man to direct the play at the National, gives its military milieu a fascist spin with blackshirt uniforms and clenched-fist salutes. The army here is a microcosm of a systemically racist society where the powers-that-be will exploit Othello’s military talents but won’t shake his hand.
Desdemona’s decision to marry him is therefore an act of strong will, and Rosy McEwen gives the character more spine and vim than I’ve ever seen before. She defies her father, teases and challenges her husband, and spiritedly defends herself until it’s too late. Paul Hilton as Iago, who ignites Othello’s sexual jealousy, is brilliantly insidious – Iago was a master of gaslighting before gaslights were invented. He also resembles an etiolated Oswald Mosley.
Almost everything here is harsh and stark. Iago mentally and physically abuses his wife Emilia (a bruised, affecting Tanya Franks). Chloe Lamford’s set, of steeply raked steps on three sides, suggests a parade ground and a gladiatorial arena. The supporting players who gather to lynch Othello in the opening scene become coldly hostile spectators or emblems of the madness seeded in his mind.
No wonder he is so easily deranged by Iago. Called shirtless from his marital bed, we see his scars – apparently lash marks on his back rather than battle wounds. This Othello apparently rose from slavery to a position and rank that are tenuously held. It’s not paranoia if the society you inhabit hates you.
But there’s softness and mutual passion between Othello and Desdemona. Terera’s gentle, fluting voice brings his poetic soul alive and McEwen makes her a poised and spirited foil. The first half of the play accelerates towards mania: the second has an urgently fatalistic pace.
The touching scene between Desdemona and Emilia on their last night alive balances the earlier one where Iago worms his doubts into Othello’s mind on a martial arts dojo. Desdemona can be a graveyard for the careers of young, slim, blonde, would-be classical actresses. McEwen could be the one who goes beyond it.
Some parts of the production are overdone: the glaring lighting changes; the moment Iago activates the dormant spectators like robots from Westworld. But ultimately one can’t argue with the subtlety of the three central performances or the brutal logic of Dyer’s production. As a teenager he was shocked by images of a blacked-up Laurence Olivier in the NT foyer. Now he’s deputy artistic director here, delivering a version of Othello that challenges the idea that we’re in a post-racist society (if you don’t believe him, look online). Frankly, it’s about time.
National Theatre, to January 21; nationaltheatre.org.uk
