Susannah Millonzi, Susannah Hoffman, Ryan Quinn, and Eric Tucker play all the roles in Bedlam’s stripped-down Othello (photo by Ashley Garrett)
OTHELLO
West End Theatre at St. Paul & St. Andrew United Methodist Church
263 West Eighty-Sixth St. between Broadway & West End Ave.
Tuesday – Sunday, November 7-29, $22.50-$86.50
bedlam.org
[This past spring, Bedlam’s Othello ran at the West End Theatre; it is now back for an encore engagement from November 7 to 29. Below is my original review; it is staged in a small theater with limited tickets, so grab yours as soon as you can.]
In Bedlam’s Othello, William Shakespeare’s words take center stage, for nearly three captivating hours; no cuts have been made to the text, and the presentation feels fresh and new.
A cast of four performs more than a dozen parts in a bare white space, with only a handful of small props: Susannah Hoffman is Desdemona and Cassio, Susannah Millonzi is Roderigo and Emilia, Ryan Quinn is Othello and Bianca, and director Eric Tucker is Iago.
Angry that Othello named Cassio his first lieutenant instead of him, Iago is intent on bringing Othello down, through trickery and deceit. He conspires with the Venetian gentleman Roderigo to convince everyone that the Moorish general Othello used evil witchcraft to force Senator Brabantio’s daughter, Desdemona, into a secret marriage. “Your daughter and the Moor are now making the beast with two backs,” Iago tells the powerful politician, using race as a sword.
When Othello and Desdemona publicly declare their love for each other, Iago concocts a diabolical plan to persuade Othello that his beloved is having an affair with Cassio, thus ruining the general and his lieutenant, lifting Iago’s station, and allowing Roderigo to pursue his own lust for Desdemona.
“O beware, my lord, of jealousy! / It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock / The meat it feeds on,” Iago says to Othello. “That cuckold lives in bliss / Who, certain of his fate, loves not his wronger; / But O, what damnèd minutes tells he o’er, / Who dotes yet doubts, suspects yet soundly loves!”
To achieve his revenge, Iago must also pull the wool over the eyes of his wife, Emilia, who is Desdemona’s maidservant; Bianca, Cassio’s lover; the Duke of Venice; Gratiano, Brabantio’s brother; Lodovico, Desdemona’s cousin; and Montano, the governor of Cyprus.
“Reputation, reputation, reputation!” Cassio declares.
That’s precisely what Iago seeks to destroy in anyone who gets in his way.
Othello (Ryan Quinn) and Desdemona (Susannah Hoffman) face doom and dread in Bedlam production (photo by Ashley Garrett)
The first act of Othello takes place with the actors performing on a dirty white floor in front of an unsteady white wall; initially, the only props are a bell and a black rope/noose, but a string of Christmas lights and a microphone are added for a karaoke scene. For the second act, the three rafters of seating are rearranged to form a circle closing in on the middle, where most of the action occurs, although the actors also stomp around behind the audience and up and down the aisles. Cheyenne Sykes’s lighting gets much darker, the characters at times using flashlights. The actors usually but not always make tiny adjustments to Sam Debell’s contemporary costumes to indicate when they are a different character, which can get a little awkward. The karaoke scene is awkward as well, straying from the simpler beauty of the rest of the show.
Hoffman and Millonzi excel in their multiple roles, and Quinn is an admirable, heart-wrenching Othello, but the key to the narrative lies in the hands of Iago, and Tucker, who also designed the tense sound, is a slyly devious master manipulator, his tongue often in his cheek as his plot unfolds; possessed of a rapier wit, he thinks quick on his feet, like an improv comic who’s not about to lose control of the upcoming punch line.
Bedlam’s first two productions, back in 2013, were four-actor versions of Bernard Shaw’s Saint Joan and Hamlet, so this Othello is a return to its roots following such other successful shows as Sense & Sensibility, Arcadia, The Good John Proctor, and Are the Bennet Girls OK? Because of the minimal staging, the words flow beautifully; you have to listen closely, resulting in picking up small elements you may have missed in bigger adaptations with famous stars.
Through it all, the words stand tall, even conquering a few scenes that linger too long or go a bit off-kilter.
[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer; you can follow him on Substack here.]