Sean Patrick Thomas and John Campion (Courtesty Intiman Theatre)
By Gianni Truzzi
Seattle PostGlobe Theatre Critic
Youth may possess passion, but age has cunning, so suggests this searing version of “Othello” at Intiman Theatre.
It’s a small but effective twist of casting that distinguishes this production by the New York-based Theatre for a New Audience of Shakespeare’s pinnacle work. The gap of years between the Moorish general and his embittered destroyer Iago swills with the unique brand of resentment that only the old can harbor against the young.
Jealousy may be the weapon Othello’s wronged ensign uses against him, but envy is the story’s engine. Angry at being passed over for a promotion in favor of the green but well-born Cassio, Iago exacts his revenge by seeding Othello’s deadly suspicion that his new wife Desdemona has been unfaithful.
Usually, the parts are played by actors of similar age, and the dynamic is one of rivalry between ambitious and potent men. But John Campion, far senior to the 29-year-old Sean Patrick Thomas as Othello, brings forth Iago as a bilious toad nursing decades of slights and disappointments. “I hate the Moor,” he declares plainly, but it rings of a lifetime’s final straw.
In all other respects, director Arin Arbus’ approach is conventional, perhaps even too neatly so. Thomas is a virile and bold Othello, confidently striding in his riding boots, and the cast supports him with classical poise and elocution. He tells of his gentle wooing of Desdemona with the same brash pride as a conquest on the battlefield. There is plenty of vigor and dash on the bare thrust stage, but also little that challenges our expectations.
The initial spareness of dimension is mirrored in Peter Ksander’s set, a black, flat backdrop of rectangular geometry that offers two symmetrically placed doors below a catwalk. It makes a poor transition to the acoustically-challenged Intiman stage, its lack of sound reflection muddying speech.
Our first glimmer of life is offered by Elisabeth Waterston, whose Desdemona quails at the conflicting duty between father and secretly wed husband. Waterston (the accomplished daughter of actor Sam Waterston) is consistently truthful as the innocent who is in way over her head.
It’s only once jealousy takes root, midway into the production’s first half, that things spark. Campion, who until then has relied on stiff bluster, melts into a mask of feigned weakness and puzzlement before his target. His age makes him appear credible and harmless.
Thomas, too, is much more interesting in agony than in vanity, bending himself against his tortured thoughts like bamboo straining to snap.
Equally impressive are Lucas Hall as Cassio, callow and easily gulled by the more experienced ensign, and Kate Forbes as Iago’s wife Emilia. Forbes richly scores Emilia’s famous chastisement of ill-behaved husbands with the knowledge of Iago’s long abusive treatment.
Without Campion’s non-traditional presence, this “Othello” would be a capably talented but unenlightening production. Arbus misses a lot, such as the anxiety of otherness that must be felt both by the moor and the Venetians he serves, his desire to be accepted and the city’s resentment that they need him that supports Iago in his fatal vengeance.
Yet what does emerge may be enough to enrich: the truth that pride and ambition does not wane as the hair turns gray. The chief folly of youth, we are reminded, is to underestimate the old.
“Othello” runs through Aug. 9 at Intiman Theatre at Seattle Center, 201 Mercer St. Tickets: $40-$55, $10 under 25, $25 all Tuesday performances; (206) 269-1900 or www.intiman.org.
Sean Patrick Thomas and John Campion (Courtesty Intiman Theatre)
