A single blue light comes up and the audience find Roderigo and Iago rushing onto the stage. Their faces are white and Iago is making very un-comfortable movements, showing he is on edge about something. A blue light is used to signify the cold and damp weather. The floor in the opening scene is made up of a sheet of tarpaulin lain across the floor, we can see it is wet, which suggests that is has been raining but this is all we are given to tell us where the play is taking place. There is no scenery, it is very minimalistic, and the only thing to change through the play is the floor, and the lighting. Roderigo and Iago are wearing heavy coats and Roderigo has a scarf on, all these things show us the type of weather they are experiencing. Iago, however, looks a lot less respectable than Roderigo. Roderigo is dressed in a long, what looks to be, designer jacket and he has a multicoloured scarf underneath, he is also carrying an umbrella which is the only prop on stage. His hair is neat and his clothes look tidy. These things give the audience that he is rather rich. Iago, in complete contrast is wearing a plain, scruffy, old raincoat. His hair looks greasy and he looks shifty. He uses a “Del boy” accent, which gives the audience an idea of the sort of person he is. He quickly establishes himself as a “jack the lad” type of character. So straight away, due to the way he is acting, the way he is dressed and the way he speaks, the audience quickly makes up their mind about what kind of person Iago is and distrust him and associate him with bad things.
In the first scene Iago seems very on edge and his movements are very shifty and he does not stand in one place for a long time, but at the same time he does not make any redundant movements and every movement had a reason. The actor looks like he is comfortable using the stage to its full potential. He has good facial expressions, and reacts with the other actors very naturally. An example of this is when he is on stage with Rodierigo. The director has put Roderigo and Iago as a sort of comedy double act. There is tall, lanky, and stupid Roderigo, and the short, serious and the “brains” behind the operation, Iago. Together they almost have a Laurel and Hardy chemistry between them. He also uses every means possible to deliver his lines to their full potential, instead of just saying his lines, he put meaning into them by altering pitch of his voice. He also uses hand movements and stage movements to give his performance a bit extra and make it a more realistic. The character is very ugly and the actor has his hair slicked back and it looks very greasy. He has almost reptilian features adding to the sliminess of the character. In the opening act he had a very white face to add to how ugly, unhealthy and repugnant the character is, it also shows us how worried and on edge he is. He is wearing some red eyeliner, which makes his eyes look big and round, this only adds to his to his reptilian features. Iago was a strange character because he had the ability to switch the audiences’ feelings from hating him liking him in a split second, he does this simply by being a bit of a joker. The audience cant help liking him until they find out what he is up to. He also makes good use of talking to the audience to increase the dramatic irony of the play. The whole play is full of dramatic irony, and there are points when the suspense of the other characters finding out the truth becomes unbearable, this increases the pleasure of watching the play.
When the actors arrive at Cyprus the whole colour scheme of the play changes. The floor changes from the green wet tarpaulin of Venice to the beige, dry, rough almost stony floor for Cyprus. This is not the only change though. In connection to this, the main characters also change their costumes. Instead of the rather bright green uniforms they were wearing in Venice, they, like the floor, change to a much more subtle beige/cream colour. When they play has moved to Cyprus not only does the floor material and texture change but the way it is set out does also. As the stage is in a circle the material covering it is also in a circle and it has ropes running from the out side to the centre which when vied from above look almost like a spiders web. This could represent the web of lies and depict that is in Cyprus, and in the end scene Desdemona kneels in the middle of the “web” and prays, this could be represent the way she has been caught up in the middle of it all.
One notable thing about the play is the good use of stage and blocking by the actors, they all made good use of the stage and movement, and there was no point when the actors were making redundant movements. They made every movement have a meaning and they moved to emphasis the points they were making through the speech. There was also a careful choice of props by the director, and there were only props when they were needed to enhance the quality of the act. The actors made good use of the props they had and they were almost an extension of their body. They looked very comfortable using them, which in turn made the audience accept the props as being real, and made the scenes with them in more realistic.
However, it was not just hand props that were used. A number of items were lowered from the roof of the theatre. This was very effective in helping to set the scene and it also cut the time in between scenes when the props would have had to be brought on by hand. One of the props that was lowered down from the roof was Desdemonas’ bed. Obviously in this instance they needed a bed on stage, they could not just mime it, and so this was the best way to have it on stage. Another thing that was lowered was the light over the map in the governor’s scene. I think they used this light, opposed to the roof mounted ones because it solely lit up the map and the governors’. This helped to create the intensity of the scene and also made the room feel very small and for the first time made the audience feel as if they were looking in on the play, not a part of it.
Othello is a play that makes a lot of use of soliloquy, and it is Iago who is the one who is constantly interacting with the audience. When Iago is talking to the audience, the director either made all the other actors on the stage exit or he would have them standing in the isles. When Iago was talking to the audience the director would have the light on him, to concentrate all of the audiences attention on him. The actor playing Iago, however did not just “talk” to the audience, he approached them, Interacted with them and there was an instance when he actually made contact with one of the audience members. This ensured that the audiences’ attention was not lost when he was delivering important lines.
The clothes the actors were wearing were from about the late nineteenth century; this gives the play a more modern feel than if they were wearing clothes from the exact time that the play was set. As the audience was so close to the stage the costumes had to be very realistic, and be of good quality. One criticism for the play, though, was that the costumes were well chosen but some of them looked a little rough round the edges and some of the trousers were a bit too short for the actors. However, despite this the costumes did work well as it was a bit of a gamble whether the costumes from the nineteenth century would work with the play, but overall I think the director succeeded in trying to make the characters as believable as possible. One thing that was notable was the fact that not many of the actors had make-up on. In the first act it did look like Iago had some white powder on his face to make him look pale, but apart from that the make-up was kept to a minimum. One reason for this I think could be because the actors were working in such close proximity with the audience if they had too much make up on then it would be too obvious to the audience.
The sound effects used during the play were minimal, hinting only at things that were going on in the distance. This I believe was to help the audience distinguish exactly where the scene was taking place, an example of this was when the play moved to Cyprus, and faint cricket noises could be heard.
The lighting was very effective in the play, not only was it used to illuminate the stage, the lighting was used to reflect the mood being conveyed by the actors, this was apparent, towards the end of the play when the rage of Othello was growing and he was becoming more and more insane having realising what he has done. The lighting effect moved from “cool blue” through to a “blood red” Used to interpret the change in his character which went from being a happy and optimistic person to a crazy, broken and twisted man.
The dramatisation was effective in bringing alive the characters to unfold the story in a strong and developing format.