Theatre Review: Othello (Shakespeare's Globe)

The last ten years or so can't be said to have lacked for starry Othello productions on UK stages, whether it's Chiwetel Ejiofor facing off with Ewan MacGregor at the Donmar, Clarke Peters and Dominic West in a high-Wire production at Sheffield Crucible, or Adrian Lester and Rory Kinnear at the NT. Still, there's something particularly exciting about the prospect of Mark Rylance returning to the theatre that he ran to play Iago opposite André Holland (of Barry Jenkins's Moonlight and several stage Shakespeares in the US) in the title role. However, the results, in Claire van Kampen's erratic production, don't prove ideal.

Part of the problem is the tendency of the Globe audience to turn every play into a comedy, so that each instance of dramatic irony generates guffaws and even a line such as "Strangle her in her bed" is greeted with hearty laughter by some. But that tendency is exacerbated in van Kampen's production via the farcical scampering around that occurs in its early stages.

Rylance is the principal offender here. He begins by speaking the lines at breakneck speed; his proficiency with the language means that (almost) every word is heard but, still, several vital utterances don't have the weight of thought. Red-capped and nimble, Rylance tries out lots of interesting things in the performance but his Iago finally feels less mercurial than incoherent. Even before Iago's soliloquies start Rylance seems to be acting more to the audience than to the other performers; that approach may be justified to a degree, but when he does start to get more of a relationship going with his fellow cast members it feels like too little too late. Ultimately Rylance neither succeeds in creating a disturbing presence here nor in making something really fresh out of the role.

Holland fares considerably better. In the early scenes, his stillness and poise are in such contrast to Rylance's restless scurrying about that it's a relief to look at and listen to him. (A very stylish coat helps, too.) He treats the language with ease and naturalness, his American accent accentuating Othello's outsiderness, and he makes contact with the other actors while still being inclusive of the audience. In the second half, the performance becomes a bit more generalised (Rylance's feebleness as an antagonist doesn't help him), but Holland is by far the best reason for seeing this production.

There's solid support from William Cubb as a Lear-ish Brabantio, from Aaron Pierre as a hot-headed Cassio, and from Badria Timimi and Catherine Bailey in the effectively re-gendered roles of Lodovica and the Doge of Venice. (Bailey also doubles as a sparky Bianca.) Jessica Warbeck is competent and sometimes touching as Desdemona, belatedly achieving the production's most unsettling moment as she feels what she believes to be her husband's conciliatory embrace turn into strangulation.

As Emilia, though, Sheila Atim underwhelms, giving an awkward performance that doesn't maximise the huge potential in this crucial role; the great "Willow" scene between her and Desdemona seems not so great here. This is particularly disappointing in a season that seeks to trace the character of Emilia through Shakespeare's drama, leading to Morgan Lloyd Malcolm's recently-opened new rabble-rouser about Emilia Bassano. Following her acclaimed turn in Girl from the North Country, it's not too much of a surprise that van Kampen gives Atim a bonus song to sing, but the most sparkling thing about the actress here is her costume: two (rather inappropriate) gold outfits with gold earrings and a shock of gold hair to match. (This Emilia out-dresses her mistress.)

Otherwise, Jonathan Fensom's design is undistinguished and unilluminating, which might be said of the production as a whole. Little thought seems to have gone into context or the exploration of certain relationships, so that promising aspects such as Iago and Emilia also being in an "interracial" marriage don't receive the attention that they merit. Rylance's gabbling and some cuts to the text ensure that the evening is a fairly pacy one, but the end result is to make the material look more like a clunky melodrama with comic elements than a searing examination of jealousy and manipulation. Holland's compelling performance aside, this is an unintense production that doesn't dig deeply enough for the racial and sexual politics of the play - or, simply, its tragedy - to resonate as they should.

Othello is booking at the Globe until 13 October.

Film Review: Coriolanus (Fiennes, 2011)

Ralph Fiennes’s Coriolanus gets its UK release this coming weekend. I had the pleasure of seeing the film at the London Film Festival last year, and it made my Top 10 Films of 2011 list, just. Here’s what I wrote about it after the LFF screening.

Seldom regarded as one of Shakespeare’s most profound or popular tragedies, Coriolanus is a work that has, nonetheless, frequently been raided for contemporary parallels by directors and adaptors across the centuries. The play’s slippery dissection of democracy - its concern with “people power,” the challenges of leadership and what constitutes “good” rule - has left it open to multiple, often contradictory interpretations. Nahum Tate’s 1682 adaptation was set against Whig-Tory rivalry, while later adaptations referred to the 1715 and 1745 Jacobite Rebellions. In the 20th Century, the Nazis extolled the heroism of the protagonist and drew favourable comparisons with Hitler, while Brecht’s 1953 version surprised no-one by portraying the masses as heroes.

Ralph Fiennes’s big, brawny new film adaptation strives - sometimes astutely and sometimes ham-fistedly - to chime with the times. The tale of the warrior-hero who, when conspired against, turns his back on Rome to join forces with his arch-enemy, the Volscian general Aufidius, is the tragedy of a man who, though a notable success on the battle-field, is entirely unable to flatter or charm the populace. Tipping its hat to the title of John Osborne’s 1973 adaptation, Fiennes’s film locates the action in “a place calling itself Rome” - a Balkan war-zone - and the early scenes in which the citizens besiege the Senate and are beaten back by riot-police certainly gain an extra frisson in the light of recent uprisings and anti-capitalist demos.

Making his directorial debut here, Fiennes has done a mostly commendable job of work. And returning to a role that he first played on stage in 2000, he also delivers a compelling central performance that has genuine gravitas. But his approach sometimes betrays a certain amount of insecurity in relation to the material. The film strives so hard to be cinematic - jittery camera-work? check; ear-splitting sound? check - that it’s occasionally a little embarrassing. The opening scenes suggest a particularly hyperbolic advert for a Panorama Special, and the decision to present the conflict between the Romans and the Volscians through the language of TV news media (yawn) feels all too predictable. (How fresh this device seemed when it book-ended Baz Lurhrmann’s 1996 Romeo + Juliet; how totally shop-worn now. The nadir here is a Jon Snow cameo.) As director, Fiennes also seems to have taken instruction from some of his previous collaborators: the over-wrought action scenes find him doing his best Kathryn Bigelow impersonation (Barry Ackroyd, who shot The Hurt Locker [2008], is the movie’s cinematographer), while the presentation of the Citizens as a very motley crew recalls the 2005 Deborah Warner production of Julius Caesar in which Fiennes played Mark Antony.

This tendency towards over-emphasis does result in admirably lucid story-telling, though. The film is thoughtfully paced and structured, with Coriolanus’s rejection of Rome taking place almost exactly at the movie’s mid-point. Hollywood’s favourite screenwriter-for-hire John Logan has done a skilful job of paring back (and simplifying) the text, although some elements and supporting roles do suffer the consequences of his tinkering. While Brian Cox is able to come through with a finely modulated performance as Menenius, the work of Paul Jesson and James Nesbitt as the conspiring Tribunes ends up seeming obvious at times. And, more problematically, the association between Coriolanus and Aufidius (Gerard Butler, adequate) never quite strikes the sparks that it initially promises to. The homoerotic implications of the relationship which have been highlighted by some directors aren’t stressed here, although the movie does boast a slightly bizarre night-time sequence in which the Volscian camp seems momentarily to have morphed into a gay club.

The most genuinely exciting moments are those in which Fiennes stops proclaiming “Look! I’m making a MOVIE!” and opts for more sparsely staged scenes that allow Shakespeare’s language to do the work. Coriolanus then offers some memorably taut encounters, and some eloquent and expressive images, too. Fiennes’s scenes with Vanessa Redgrave’s strong, seductive Volumnia are especially fine; Redgrave (who gave even her hokey dialogue in Letters to Juliet [2010] the weight she might give to a spot of prime Shakespearean verse) delivers her best screen performance in years as the ambitious, manipulative matriarch. And she and Fiennes look wonderful together - a pair of Roman statues in the making, indeed - their intense close-ups offering the thrill that the theatre can’t provide. Volumnia’s final supplication scene is brilliantly sustained - the movie’s highlight - and its impact mitigates some of the more questionable, obvious ideas that mar the film’s opening sections. This Coriolanus isn’t, overall, everything that it could have been. But at its best it’s a vivid and gripping account of this now seldom-staged play.