Othello
Theatre Royal, Haymarket
Many of us know and love David Harewood from Homeland, in which he starred opposite Claire Danes and Damian Lewis.
But until you’ve seen him on stage, you can’t appreciate what a class act he really is.
And what better way to showcase his silky skills than as Shakespeare’s Venetian general, Othello – alongside Toby Jones, of Mr Bates vs The Post Office, as his evil, manipulative ensign Iago.
Harewood is 59, and this is his second go at the role, having previously been (incredibly) the first black actor to play the part at the National Theatre in 1997.
His Moor of Venice is at first almost deliriously besotted with new wife Desdemona (Caitlin FitzGerald, of TV’s Masters Of Sex) – only to be plunged into fits of gibbering jealousy by Jones’s Iago.
Harewood digs deep into his own well-documented experience of psychosis to show how Othello’s easy and assured nature collapses into crazed, murderous credulity. Coasting about in a crisp cream uniform with crimson epaulettes, he is sweet, subtle and tender, but – fatally – also gullible and easily led.
David Harewood and Caitlin FitzGerald are watched by Toby Jones
Actors Harewood and Jones during Othello at Theatre Royal, Haymarket
Until you’ve seen him on stage, you can’t appreciate what a class act Harewood really is
His Moor of Venice is at first almost deliriously besotted with new wife Desdemona (FitzGerald)
His dry, imperious and oracular tones duly start to quaver with vulnerability and doubt.
Jones, meanwhile, is a flea in his ear.
So small and slight that he sometimes disappears behind stage furniture, he is a cunning, impish gaslighter, carefully plotting while acting on the fly. He has the audience taking guilty pleasure in his smirking, vindictive ploys, and then reduces us to shocked silence.
Even so, the play’s ending remains a problem in Tom Morris’s fleet-footed production, featuring slightly distracting background music by P J Harvey.
FitzGerald is a strong, Amazonian alpha female (just 2ins shorter than the 6ft Harewood) and presents Desdemona as more than just a simpering victim.
But her story still climaxes in chilling domestic violence.
Great as the acting often is on Ti Green’s gracefully metamorphic set, the play endures as a queasy, morally dubious melodrama.
- Othello is booking until January 17.
