RSC Friends

Iqbal Khan’s new production embeds the action in two locations, a darkly brooding city of decaying Venetian gothic and a multiracial mercenary camp surrounded by the shell of some war torn Middle eastern city. These references to contemporary conflicts work wonderfully to sharpen the dramatic tension providing a cockpit for Iago and Cassio’s hostility and a testosterone fuelled environment through which innocent and ardent Desdemona moves , oblivious to the tensions and imminent violence that crowd around her.

Hugh Quairshie’s Othello,at first warm, kindly and bountiful is undone by a murderous jealousy which is entirely credible in the context of the mercenary camp he commands where dehumanising torture is endemic. Unusually Iago is played by another black actor,Lucian Msamati. Removing a simple racial hatred from Iago’s motivation makes the dark wellspring of his evil intent more irrational, more chilling. Is it sexual jealousy, thwarted ambition or disgust that Othello has allowed himself to become the agent of European ambition and oppression? We can only speculate. The ambivalence adds power to the experience.