Shakespeare is to the stage what fresh, organic ingredients are to the kitchen. Given the best raw material, can you create something original? visceral? satisfying? San Jacinto's Inland Stage Company does, admirably, with their latest offering, "Othello: The Moor of Venice."
Set in a modern, nondescript, American-occupied, middle-eastern locale, starring a resplendent John Wesley Leon as the poetic, well-accented (non-African) Arabic soldier in charge, director Jim Marbury's well-helmed production will stay with you long after lights outs.
Even after losing a week of rehearsals from flu, and the original (female) Iago Jeanette Gardea to pneumonia, this adaptation still provokes and enthralls -- due in large part to eleventh-hour replacement, Brady Greer Huffman, who manages a delightfully unsettling performance. Together, Huffman and Leon sizzle as they blend their world apart. The ever-talented Marcy Wright, as Iago's unloved wife, Emilia, will cut you deep as she makes the horrific realization of her husband's plot, and reveals it to all in the face of imminent death.
Too often with Shakespeare, unfortunately, the audience silently rejoices as bodies pile up at the end -- knowing the more people die, the closer they'll be to getting home. Not so here. You don't want the the end to come, even empathize with the characters, and wish they'd hold off the slaughter for a just few more stanzas so they can discover the truth, and repair their relationships instead.The incorporation of a multimedia slideshow prologue helps solidify the modernization of the piece. A modern soundtrack, featuring Bruno Mars' pop-ish yet eerily appropriate "Grenade," is also nice choice. Guarantee you'll be humming I would catch a grenade for ya... Throw my hand on a blade for ya... on your way home, pondering the ecstasy and brutality of love, and love gone awry.
LA theater reviews by LA Theater Critic.
