Throughout reading the interview with Kent Thompson, two of the choices he made while staging Othello really intrigued me:
-Firstly, I was initially surprised by the fact that Thompson chose to stage Othello on the smaller theatre at the festival. At first, I disagreed with his decision as I thought Othello, being the well known and popular play it is, should be performed on the largest stage possible as to allow more individuals to see it. After reading further, however, I came to understand why Thompson made this decision. Since Othello contains so much anger, jealousy, racism, and pain, I do agree that staging it on a smaller stage would make the actor/audience relationship more intimate, creating a more dramatic effect on the audience. With this in mind, I think it would be interesting to see Othello performed on both a large stage and a smaller stage to experience the differences first hand.
- Secondly, I found it interesting that Thompson decided to cast the roles of Desdemona and Iago with actors that were a bit older than usual. As I was reading Othello, I pictured Desdemona as a very strong, intelligent, and reasonable woman. Because of this, I completely respect Thompson for using an older actress to help emphasize these character traits. However, I am less convinced of the need to cast Iago with an older individual. Although I do understand that Iago’s age could have played a role as to why Cassio was chosen over him for the position, I feel that the persona of Iago as a deceitful and manipulative villain would not be portrayed as effectively with an older actor. While I was reading the play, I thought of Iago’s personality flaws as a result of ignorance, which allows me to more easily visualize his role being played by a younger actor.
I had the same reaction as you to the decision to stage Othello in the smaller theatre. I also imagined it being staged for a large audience because of its popularity and history. After reading Kent Thompson's reasoning for the staging decision, I understood why he chose that setting and agreed that it added an additional dimension to the events of the play. The decision to cast Desdemona was something else I had not thought of until reading Kent's decision to do so. I think it was a good way to portray her as more well rounded and reasonable than a young character would have been able to.
ReplyDeleteI too agreed that it seemed a little odd that the play was set on a small stage, but again after reading his reasons why, I too can agree with him using the small set. I also agree with his reasoning of casting an older woman as Desdemonia. I think that if it had been someone younger, like he said, she could have easily been mistaken as someone too young and foolish to actually know what real love is. With all Kent's reasons as to every decision he made, ideas and points were easily called to attention and agreed with!
ReplyDelete