Othello Theatre Review

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Review of “Othello” by Frantic Assembly

Play: “Othello” by William Shakespeare

Performance Company: Frantic Assembly

Date: Thursday 23rd October 2008

Venue: Nutfield Theatre, Southampton

Set in a pub caught at the frontier of the racial tension in West Yorkshire in 2001, Frantic Assembly’s “Othello” took an original Shakespearean play and reinvented it for a modern audience whilst still keeping the authenticity of the original text.

The majority of the performance was set in a public house with the main focus of the stage on a pool table surrounded by various tables and chairs as seen in the diagram below. The table was on wheels allowing it to be easily maneuvered on and off stage between scenes. The walls were not fixed in one position and could ‘fold’ and ‘sway’ when needed. This was used to great effect in one scene where Othello, portrayed by Jimmy Akingbola, commits suicide. The walls concaved around the actor, creating a strong feeling of claustrophobia within the audience. This allowed the viewer to clearly relate to the emotions experienced by the character as he realized the consequence of his actions; a foreboding feeling of doom. Throughout the scene, the lighting and sound design also played a major part in raising the tension for the audience. Until this particular moment in the play, there had always been a hushed background noise of the distant thump of disco music and barking dogs; however, for this scene, the faint hum was replaced by silence. This startling contrast grabbed the audience’s attention and sharply conveyed the sense of urgency whilst allowing Akingbola’s final monologue to be heard clearly and emphatically. The lighting dimmed and a single spotlight shone on Akingbola suggesting to the audience the importance of the actor’s character within the scene.

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Throughout the duration of the play I felt the set was managed magnificently. The basic initial layout and lack of set changes complemented the actors’ simplistic approach to the original text. Whilst the actors spoke in Shakespearian tongue and didn’t amend the text, the set was only altered for two scenes which helped to intensify the strength of the effect that these transformations had. An example of this would be the scene in which Iago ...

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