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"Back to Basics - Christopher Walken's punk Iago vs. Raul Julia's traditional Othello" - by Carol Rosen Raul Julia deserves another crack at Othello - his previous foray into this role (1978) having suffered because Richard Dreyfuss was a far from formidable Iago - and he performs the role in the sentimental Olivier tradition, rather than in the crazed James Earl Jones tradition. Julia's voice has never been richer, his tones lush and enveloping. When Olivier hesitated to take on this role, he argued that "I haven't got the voice. Othello has to have a dark, black, violet, velvet, bass voice." Of course, Olivier worked until he found such a voice. Julia's is not as artificially deep as Olivier's but it's an equally commanding baritone. From his first booming "put up your bright swords," followed by a pause and a more conciliatory "or the dew will rust them," we see this is an Othello to be reckoned with, a powerful warrior who's voice can subdue chaos. His "Farewell" speech resonates with operatic fully rounded, deeply sounded long notes. This Othello weeps and embraces his trusted Iago with his "O Iago, the pity of it" in IV.i. His plaintive "O misery" fills the night. He howls. Julia renders Othello less of an impassioned gull than clichéd performances would suggest, and more of a logical, political hero, even as he metes out revenge, referring specifically to justice. This Othello listens to Iago not because he is easily duped, relying on him as a "tour-guide" to strange mores. Instead, Julia makes us feel that there is a history between Othello and Iago, that Othello does have cause to love Iago and to believe him "honest." This is an original actor's choice and it pays off in the poignancy of Othello's last scene, when he realizes how deeply his love has been betrayed. There is one difficulty in an otherwise dignified tragic portrayal. We never perceive Julia's Othello as an outsider in the society that carries him on its shoulders into Cyprus. He seems too young and vigorous and to-the-manor-born to suffer Othello's pangs. He does not appear to be a foreigner, ill at ease in any way, nor does he seem old (he has, says Othello, "declined into the vale of years"), he is not battle-worn or sexually declined ("those instincts in me defunct"). Nor is he unhappy or snoring in his marriage bed: there is even a flirtatious, passionate newlywed scene in Cyprus. Raul Julia's Othello appears in the prime of his life, and could win a Venetian wife with the standard stuff. He is not someone who needs to woo with tall-tales, go-betweens, or witchcraft. ***** In a pre-opening interview with the New York Times, Dowling said that "There's a fascinating relationship between Othello and Iago. Iago is lower class, while Othello is an outsider, but both represent outsiders' views of the society they belong to. One decides to destroy the other because of this motiveless evil. The other depends on him and trusts him. Why? Because he recognizes him equally as an outsider...As the play goes on, Iago does not simply gull the Moor because he is black. He gulls him because he himself needs that satisfaction of the motiveless malignancy [sic]." What Dowling is referring to here, of course, is Coleridge's famous speculation about Iago as the personification of evil, "motiveless malignity." With his chameleon charm and fast-talking delivery, Christopher Walken finds a very specific character behind this conventional enigma of evil for evil's sake. Yet his Iago is far from motiveless; motives abound. They spring to his mind and lips with speed and frequency. He cannot wait to spew them forth in asides in a spotlight; and he is an Iago self-aware. He does suspect that Othello has "done his office" with Emilia; he does feel betrayed by Cassio's promotion; he does yearn to be worthy to "board" such a fine ship as Desdemona, who touches him briefly in greeting at Cyprus, leaving him momentarily speechless and agape, and whose name he turns into a tune he can dance to. And still we feel there is more to his anger; some unnameable monstrous - but human - thing that is his cause. He does his work to "plume up [his] will." For Walken, the touchstone of the performance is Iago's off-handed confession to Othello in III.iii.: "I perchance am vicious in my guess Act III, scene iii is the pivot about which this play spins. This is the scene which introduces the device of the much-ridiculed handkerchief, first mocked at the close of the 17th century by Thomas Rymer: "The moral, sure of this fable is very instructive. First, this may be a caution to all Maidens of Quality, how, without their parents' consent, they run away with Blackamoors. Secondly, this may be a warning to all good wives that they may look well to their linen. Thirdly, this may be a lesson to husbands, that before their jealousy be tragical, the proofs be mathematical." This exhausting scene also charts Othello's disbelief, his conversion to Iago's point of view, and it it ends with an exchange of vows between Othello and Iago. This Othello is at its most fluid in III.iii. Iago flaunts the handkerchief, and later, asserting his hypnotic power over a broken Othello, he makes its theft and its use as "ocular proof" superfluous. Raul Julia's Othello is clearly transformed in this scene: he literally kisses away his love of Desdemona at the line "All my fond love thus do I blow / to heaven," his voice swells to call up "blood, blood, blood," and then, like a daemonic sorcerer, Iago hovers above and behind the kneeling Othello, waving his hands as if casting a spell. The scene ends with the two men, bound together, clasping hands. ***** At the Delacorte, Iago and Othello are not evenly matched, wife for wife. The Emilia of Mary Beth Hurt is one of the delights of this production. She is at once devoted and shrewd. Her reading of the line "My husband..." has authority and wisdom in it. This Emilia has a sensuality and ease with both Cassio and Othello, her bawdy laughter hinting at the possibility that Iago has cause to suspect that she has cuckolded him. She harbors no illusions but she has a heart to be broken, too - something many Emilias omit from their performances. The Desdemona of Kathryn Meisle is the weak link in this chain. She has an immodest air that supports rather than belies Othello's worry about "moist hands." Meisle is a feisty ingénue, not yet dignified enough to bring the requisite peace and grace to her sacrifice in Act V. She is love to look at, especially in those highly revealing and inappropriate gowns she sports throughout (Desdemona in black? with long black evening gloves?). And she pleads for her life convincingly. But she is too worldly to be embarrassed by Iago's small talk in Act II or by Emilia's advice on infidelity in the dark. When actors tackle roles such as Othello and Iago, they are always aware of the shadows that precede them, of all the well-documented performers who have left their mark on the play. Leaving their own marks on Othello, Julia and Walken, two inveterate torch-bearers at the Delacorte, remind us that the New York Shakespeare Festival is still the closest we come in America to the vigorous spirit of a national theater. - from TheaterWeek magazine, July 15, 1991 |
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