Othello — An Engagement with Imagination

By Steve Craton

It’s said that film is a director’s medium, while plays belong to the actors.  This is especially true in the case of Othello as performed by the Actors from the London Stage company on their Fall 2013 tour, which stops at UNC Charlotte’s Belk Theater for shows Oct. 17-20.  Five British Shakespearean actors – Jude Akuwudike, Richard Neale, Jan Shepherd, Jack Whitam, and Alinka Wright – portray multiple roles on a minimalist set while wearing only one costume with varying accessories (so as to denote differing characters).  Shakespeare himself might have approved of such a production, since in the Prologue to Henry V he writes, “Think when we talk of horses, that you see them.”

Because of the production’s approach to Shakespeare, the audience is exhorted by the actors to perform an “imaginative engagement.”  The company’s academic director Peter Holland states that there are “no massive sets to tower over the performers and no directorial concept to tower over the text of Shakespeare’s play.” However, even with the production’s only set piece consisting of a grey box with a uniform dimension of two feet and one prop – a fencing sword — not much effort is required to imagine what transpires because of the phenomenal acting by each of the players.

Besides imagining sets and props, some of the male characters are played expertly by the two females on stage.  That’s ironic, since in Shakespeare’s time, female roles were always played by males.  Both Wright and Shepard are wonderful.  Wright’s Desdemona is particularly convincing and showcases a variety of emotions from marital bliss to inconsolable despair.  However, Shepard’s ability to change from a male character to a female character with no more of a costume change than a shawl or a cap is even more phenomenal.  Her Roderigo is not just an attempt to play a man but instead a transformation into a love-sick, foolish, and passionate man blind to Iago’s scheming and treachery.  Similarly, Shepard’s Emilia (wife of Iago) is equally unaware of her husband’s plan of revenge and unwittingly aids him, none the wiser.

Akuwudike’s convincing portrayal of Othello is devoted and loving in the beginning but paranoid and murderous in the end, while Whitman seamlessly goes from playing the mature Brabantio to the young Cassio.  The scene-stealer, however, is Neale and his portrayal of the diabolical Iago.  Neale’s interaction with the audience brings a different and interesting dimension to what is a stellar performance by all the players.

Like most of Shakespeare’s best plays, Othello is a seminal work studied for its literary value as well as its contribution to the theater.  The lines of the characters are as important — or more, according to some — than the plots and it’s argued that Shakespeare’s work should never have its language ‘updated’ to more contemporary usage. This production of Othello makes it clear that excellent acting will always trump elaborate sets, costumes, and gimmicks.

Swordfighting and Facebooking: Too Weird to Work

By Haley Twist

“How do you present a play that is so language-based?” director James Vesce asks himself three nights before the opening of his newest play Romeo.Juliet. His answer? “A weird juxtaposition of people with swords who are Facebooking.”

That odd combination is at the root of Vesce’s production of Romeo.Juliet, an interpretation that battles to find its footing as it struggles to be the best of both worlds. UNC-Charlotte’s Department of Theatre debuted the technology-driven adaptation of William Shakespeare’s celebrated masterpiece April 12. With a title as well-known as this one, the debate is not the play’s relevancy, but the effectiveness of the modern twist on the classic.

While this two-hour production presents a colorful, up-to-date look into the lives of the star-crossed lovers, emphasizing technology and consisting of stellar student acting, Vesce’s juxtaposition appears jumbled and misplaced at times.

Vesce, Chair of the Department of Theatre at UNC-Charlotte, dissects Shakespeare’s words as he structures Romeo.Juliet, determining the human elements that transcend time and place while thinking about how they relate to modern times.

“If Shakespeare were writing today he’d be writing for The Big Bang Theory or Will & Grace,” said Vesce, emphasizing the playwright’s knack for hitting human emotion and desire spot-on. “It’s sitcom television in our time.”

Deciding to modernize the love story, Vesce updates much of the production. Mini-dresses and skinny jeans replaces Victorian garb, a rave replaces a ball, Skype replaces messengers, and Facebook replaces daydreams. But in the midst of all the contemporary touches, a few holes are easy to see.

As the production begins, fog fills the Anne R. Belk Theater and the cast slowly emerges onstage. Electronic music begins to play, one of the strong suits of the production, and the actors engage in a short dance, contextually out-of-place.

The stage clears and audiences see Romeo in front of an iPad, lusting for Rosaline as he gazes longingly at her Facebook profile picture and poetically expresses his love for her.

Much like Baz Luhrmann’s 1996 film Romeo + Juliet, Romeo.Juliet stays in Shakespeare’s original dialogue, a commendable ambition from the cast, who never so much as stutter throughout the opening night.

From there the production progresses, featuring more beautiful Shakespeare delivered from the cast, intense dance music and plenty of action as the actors frequently travel off stage, running up and down the aisles with a blissful Juliet, played by Gina Herrera, even appearing above the audience during a fantastic adaptation of the famous balcony scene.

But throughout the performance, it’s easy to get distracted by the inconsistency. The climax of the production, a fight between the Montagues and the Capulets, was well-executed, as a professional fight choreographer, Richard Ryan, designed the sequence. But the use of swords was confusing while the scenes beforehand consisted of Skype, Facebook and cell phone usage. The inconsistency makes the iPads, phones and laptops appear less like modern touches and more like anachronisms.

While the production showcased young talent at UNC Charlotte, the discrepancies were distracting, making the modern touches seem unbalanced, something that Vesce agrees is an obstacle when incorporating technology into live classic theater.

“It’s about finding the balance, and I don’t think anyone’s found the balance quite yet.”