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About Last Night

Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

The widow Othello

September 4, 2020 by Terry Teachout

In today’s Wall Street Journal drama column I review American Shakespeare Center’s webcast of Othello. Here’s an excerpt.

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Virginia’s American Shakespeare Center was one of the first theater companies in America to grapple with the pandemic lockdown by streaming webcasts taped in its 300-seat Blackfriars Playhouse, a modern historical recreation of the wood-and-plaster interior of an Elizabethan-style theater built in London in 1596. Now ASC has become one of the first American companies to resume live performances, mounting indoor and outdoor stagings of “Othello” and “Twelfth Night” that can also be viewed online….

Having just written about Florida Repertory Theater’s “Twelfth Night” and longing to see a show of a seriousness befitting the gravity of the present moment, I chose to view “Othello” from the comfort of my apartment in Manhattan. I’ve been impressed by all of ASC’s webcasts to date, but this one, directed by Ethan McSweeny, the company’s artistic director, stands out boldly from its predecessors. Taped with a four-camera setup, it conveys with satisfying clarity the experience of seeing a show in ASC’s Blackfriars Playhouse, and it approaches “Othello” in a way that puts across its immediacy without imposing an anachronistic high-concept overlay on a masterpiece that needs no help to make its ever-relevant points about the viciously corrosive power of racism.

At first glance, this looks like a traditional “Othello,” played without scene breaks on an open stage. The Elizabethan-style costumes are colorful but conventional and the stage is decorated mainly by candles (which are put to show-stopping use). But Mr. McSweeny pulls one jaw-dropping surprise: Othello is played by a woman, Jessika D. Williams, who is more than up to the challenge posed by one of Shakespeare’s most demanding parts and puts her bold stamp on every line….

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Read the whole thing nere.

The trailer for Othello:

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Terry Teachout

Terry Teachout, who writes this blog, is the drama critic of The Wall Street Journal and the critic-at-large of Commentary. In addition to his Wall Street Journal drama column and his monthly essays … [Read More...]

About

About “About Last Night”

This is a blog about the arts in New York City and the rest of America, written by Terry Teachout. Terry is a critic, biographer, playwright, director, librettist, recovering musician, and inveterate blogger. In addition to theater, he writes here and elsewhere about all of the other arts--books, … [Read More...]

About My Plays and Opera Libretti

Billy and Me, my second play, received its world premiere on December 8, 2017, at Palm Beach Dramaworks in West Palm Beach, Fla. Satchmo at the Waldorf, my first play, closed off Broadway at the Westside Theatre on June 29, 2014, after 18 previews and 136 performances. That production was directed … [Read More...]

About My Podcast

Peter Marks, Elisabeth Vincentelli, and I are the panelists on “Three on the Aisle,” a bimonthly podcast from New York about theater in America. … [Read More...]

About My Books

My latest book is Duke: A Life of Duke Ellington, published in 2013 by Gotham Books in the U.S. and the Robson Press in England and now available in paperback. I have also written biographies of Louis Armstrong, George Balanchine, and H.L. Mencken, as well as a volume of my collected essays called A … [Read More...]

The Long Goodbye

To read all three installments of "The Long Goodbye," a multi-part posting about the experience of watching a parent die, go here. … [Read More...]

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