Frantic Assembly’s Othello - A Review
The play known as Othello is perhaps one of Shakespeare’s most famous and recognisable works. Written in roughly 1604, Othello tells the tale of the title character, an African general in the Venetian army, who is tricked into suspecting his wife of adultery. It is a tale of deceit, lies, and sexual jealousy, and the play is also widely recognised as a pioneering exploration of racial prejudice.
It was, then, quite the opportunity to travel down to the Plymouth Theatre Royal and watch a rendition of such a prestigious play put on by the equally prestigious theatre company, Frantic Assembly. Unlike Shakespeare’s original writings, which set the play in the late Renaissance period on the island of Cyprus at a time of Turkish invasion, the production of Othello that we saw in late October was in fact set in the present day, with all the props, costumes, and indeed setting being modernised and changed to make the plot seem reasonable in the modern era.
For example, rather than being set in Renaissance Cyprus, the play was set in an English working man’s club called The Cyprus, with all the characters being rewritten from officers in the Venetian army to members of a modern-day street gang. Importantly, however, the language and script of the play was not touched, with every line being spoken in the contemporary Shakespearean.
For my part, I thought the modernisation of the play to be rather successful. I thought the setting of the play was a very interesting and effective choice, putting a unique spin on this classic tale and making its themes more relevant and relatable for a modern audience. But if I was engaged and intrigued by the modernisation, I must say that I was absolutely blown away by the staging of the performance.
As already mentioned, the play took place in a working man’s club, and the staging reflected that incredibly well and truly captured the essence of such a place with Frantic’s famously minimalistic set design conventions. In terms of staging, all that was on stage was a row of chairs, a pool table, a table and stools, and a gambling machine, all surrounded by straight, dark red walls.
I feel that the set designer for this production certainly deserves much praise, for not only did the set effectively portray and reflect the dark and grungy atmosphere and environs that the context of the play demanded. However, what truly transformed the staging from the good to the breath-taking was when it was revealed that the entirety of the stage, from the bar stools to the walls themselves, proved to be entirely movable and multi-purpose, with the walls being pulled aside and props pushed away to transform the set from a dingy club to a dark backstreet.
Another interesting point was that every slat in the wall was entirely movable, leading to many interesting moments during the play, such as the walls moving and spinning in order to reflect a character’s drunkenness, and later on, several wall sections moving backwards to allow a character to almost sink into the wall in order to hide themselves.
All in all, I would say that the set design of the production was perhaps a masterpiece in itself, and could be argued to have been one of the most successful and well-executed aspects of the performance.
In terms of acting, there were certainly some stellar performances from Frantic Assembly’s cast of actors. The actor playing the role of Lago, the play’s main villain, was able to truly display and impersonate the cruel, sinister, and vindictive nature of the character, whilst also delivering the character’s monologues with a scowling, hate-filled passion that proved to be highly effective in conveying to the audience the hatred and malice felt by this character towards his enemy, Othello.
Whilst the acting style itself was fairly naturalistic, the production did include extensive use of movements, lifts, and choral actions in the fluidic and non-naturalistic styling that Frantic Assembly has become so renowned for using. These I found to be absolutely stunning, with incredibly unified actions and movements that gave the performance an incredibly fluid, almost dance-like quality, with all lifts and other assorted physical theatre being used to represent fights, celebrations, and the general passing of time in a unique and highly engaging way.
However, all was not perfect, and I must admit that several of our Drama students did point out issues relating to the movements and physical theatre of the production, citing that some movements were poorly executed or too simplistic to successfully convey meaning, with one Drama student remarking that “the cast seemed to perform more like dancers trying to act, rather than actors trying to move”. Overall, I would say that Frantic Assembly’s production of Othello was a great success.
The plotline of Shakespeare’s classic tale was conveyed in a highly engaging and intriguing manner, the movements were stunning, and the set was incredibly intricate and interesting in its design. Even though there may have been a few flaws with the performance, all in all I would say that these flaws were, at least in my view, overshadowed by the incredibly well-executed aspects of the production, which made our viewing of the play a very entertaining experience and made it a performance which I would happily watch again.
So, to conclude, I would say that traveling to see this play was a wonderful experience, and an excellent opportunity to see a highly prestigious theatre company work their magic on an age-old classic.
Jamie O