Shakespeare & Company unleashes the power of Othello
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| Founders' Theatre; July 3 - September 6; 2:00 pm / 7:30 pm |
Othello plays at Founders’ Theatre July 3 to September 6. Press opening is Saturday, July 4 at 7:30pm. To RSVP or to arrange interviews, contact Publicity Director Elizabeth Aspenlieder at (413) 637-1199 ext 110 or aspenlieder@shakespeare.org. Founders’ is air-conditioned and wheelchair accessible. Performances in the evenings run at 7:30 p.m. and in the afternoons at 2:00 p.m. For a complete listing of productions and schedules, to inquire about details of the 40% Berkshire Resident Discount, youth discounts and Rush Tix, or to receive a brochure, please visit the website at www.shakespeare.org or call the Box Office at (413) 637-3353. For group visits, contact Group Sales Manager Victoria Vining at (413) 637-1199 ext. 132.
Thompson, who is also featured this season in John Patrick Shanley’s The Dreamer Examines His Pillow (August 7—September 6), makes the very special presentation My Year With The Moor on July 28 at the Production and Performing Arts Center’s Studio 1, at 8:30 p.m. He will also join Jason Asprey (the latter playing the title role in Hamlet, performing at Founders’ Theatre until August 28) for the special talk Man of Action/Man of Thought on July 21 at the Production and Performing Arts Center’s Studio 2, at 7:30 p.m. Tickets for each event are $20, or $10 for patrons under 25 years of age.
For this eagerly anticipated remount, Simotes directs returning cast members Michael Hammond (Iago), Merritt Janson (Desdemona), Tom Rindge (Duke of Venice/Soldier), John Douglas Thompson (Othello), Michael F. Toomey (Montano/Senator), Ryan Winkles (Roderigo), and Kristin Wold (Emilia), alongside newcomers Duane Allen (Cassio), Robert Biggs (Lodovico/Soldier), Ken Cheeseman (Brabantio/Soldier), and Caley Milliken (Bianca/Servant).
The 2008 production was heralded by, among others, The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, Shakespeare Bulletin, Metroland (“Best production of the year”), and perhaps dozens of other print and online news outlets. “I knew that with the cast I had that this play had a chance to be one of those ‘special’ events that every artist longs for, and indeed it was,” Simotes says of the original production. “None of us imagined that our play would catch the imagination of the public the way it did. The audiences taught us what it meant to speak this language in the theatre. What happens when the story, characters, action of the plot, and all the magic of the play just seem to work in tandem.”
“From my perspective, to have the opportunity to re-examine this great story and its soaring poetry with the talented group of artists that brought last year’s production to light was simply an opportunity I couldn’t pass up,” Simotes continues. “To come back to this mountain of a tragedy and stand at its base is frightening and awe-inspiring all at once.”
Othello depicts the turmoil that ensues when a Christian nation struggles to accept an ethnic outsider as its protector in a time of war, and his army then copes with the aftermath of a too-easily-won victory. A tale of the unraveling of reason and order mirrored by the unraveling of language, Othello probes the question of how easily social order can explode into violence when its organizing structure collapses.
When the Moorish mercenary Othello is chosen to lead the navy of Venice during a war with the Ottoman Empire, his recent, scandalous interracial marriage with one of Venetian nobility’s fairest daughters becomes public. His importance to the defense of the nation inspires “the powers that be” to assent to his marriage of Desdemona, but Othello’s officer Iago immediately begins scheming to plant false doubts in the general about the fidelity of his wife. After a quick military victory is won, Othello unravels both emotionally and physically, his spirit filled with chaos and uncertainty.
