Othello

Is it wrong that I gained more intellectual benefits from the play than emotional release? This version of Othello, from the O Brothers company in Chicago, turned Othello into a hip-hop extravaganza. The curtains of the Globe were replaced by theirs, copies with plenty of graffiti on them. The DJ perched in the balcony, playing and changing the beats as the scene demanded. The cast was made up of four others, just one of whom was black. He played Othello. The tiny, all-male cast used cross-gender casting for Emilia and Bianca, but Desdemona never appears onstage. Neither does she have any lines. She merely sings, angelically, at moments where a response is necessary.

The tiny cast used no set pieces other than one graffiti-ed box on wheels, and no props other than their costume pieces. They only paused from rapping twice, during the entire show... once for Desdemona's death, and the other for Othello's. Other than that, the cast of four kept a constant lyrical stream going.

They adapted the scene from Venice to the American music scene, where Othello has risen to the top. At the outset of his new tour, Iago is snubbed in favor of Cassio, and thus begins the plot as we know it. The handkerchief is replaced with a gold chain, Cassio gets a drug slipped into his drink instead of simply drinking too much, and swords are replaced by mimed knives. Roderigo is a complete nerd, one to make all nerds wince at the extreme stereotyping.

I didn't expect to be sad at Desdemona's death, even up to the very event, but then the change in beat, the performance of the actors, and the silence after had a more profound effect than I expected. Emilia's death became almost comic in comparison.

I liked it, and admire the adaptor's skill in turning this text into a modern hip-hop version. He (or she) stayed faithful to the text, adding allusions to direct lines here and there, enough for the Shakespeare geeks to giggle at. I had the feeling the actors were connected not only to the hip-hop script, but the original as well, and displayed faithful care to the characters, even though the women were stereotyped and played for laughs. Men dressed as women tend to elicit that reaction. Moreover, I was impressed by the actors' ability to keep to the beat, with only two or three slipups over the entire hour and a half (plus intermission). That must have taken real stamina.

The audience loved it, and roared for them to come back for two extra curtain calls. I heard people on my way out saying that it was “awesome” and “better than Mozart”. No, seriously. I heard that. It was good, in my opinion... but not great.