Times 4/64
There have been few great Othellos in recent stage history.
The late Frederick Valk was one contender for the title:
and those who followed his work through the Irish hinterland claim the
same for Anew McMaster. But in general postwar productions of the tragedy have
centered on Iago and relegated the Moor to second position as a massively
vulnerable dupe.
John Dexter’s production emphatically reverses this relationship—as
it could scarcely fail to do with Sir Laurence Olivier, for the first time in
his career, playing the name part. But
beyond the unalterable presence of an actor whose magnitude is unrivalled on the
British stage, the production shows a determination to build up the role of the
Moor at the expense of his malignant confidant.
A clue to the interpretation is given in the programme, which quotes F.
R. Leavis’s assessment of Iago as “not much more than a necessary piece of
dramatic mechanism”: less a
character in himself than the embodiment of a concealed element in Othello’s
own nature. This role is certainly
contained in the part: but to erect
it into the whole truth amounts almost to mutilation.
Iago is not merely on the level of a tempter in a miracle play:
the part plainly exists in is own right, enigmatic perhaps, but freed
with a personal vitality which keeps the riddle of his villainy a permanently
open question.
The penalties of translating the Leavis theory into action are
graphically displayed in Frank Finlay’s performance.
Instead of the alert ensign, the resourceful actor who is all things to
all men and who shapes his plot with the delight of an artist, we are confronted
by a lumpish figure. The approach has some advantages. When all Othello’s resistance has gone, Iago clings about
his neck—almost with the embrace of a succubus—pouring poison into his ear
in tones of satanic lullaby.
The physical attachment between him and the Moor—present from their
first scene together with Othello playfully brushing his ancient’s face with a
bunch of flowers—often yields powerful effects.
(Olivier is always at his best when he is in close tactile contact with
an opponent.) But when Iago is left
to play on lesser victims or to commune with himself, the part loses its
coherence. Speed, changeable
resourcefulness, nimble invention—all the qualities one expects are replaced
by a plodding sameness, occasionally varied by arbitrary grotesqueness, and an
unhappy attempt to humanize the character by introducing a whimpering note into
the soliloquies.
The lack of a fully realized Iago seriously impoverishes the
production—even in the Othello scenes, where Mr. Finlay’s reading makes most
sense. Othello needs an adversary,
not an accomplice. As it is, Olivier’s Othello stands as a heroic solo
performance which is more remarkable for its technical mastery than for its
power to move. Physically he departs from the image of the old soldier descended
“into the vale of years.” He
presents a graceful, sensual figure to whom the duties of a bridegroom seem as
familiar as those of the battlefield. His
voice (a factor that has held him back from the part in the past) has acquired a
measured deliberation and a new lower resonance:
and—perhaps most striking of all—he has evolved a range of movement
organically related to the part: a
stance with feet apart and trunk thrown forward, and a use of oblique arm
gestures and flattened palms of the hand.
Beautifully controlled at the beginning, where his modest playing
suggests Salvini’s “sleeping volcano,” its underlying savagery becomes
increasingly pronounced until—in the oath scene—he tears the cross from his
neck and bows to the floor in atavistic obeisance to a barbaric god.
Of the other performances the best is Derek Jacobi’s Cassio, who makes
full use of his brief spell as lieutenant (for some reason uniformally
pronounced “lootenant”) to pull his rank over Iago and thus invite enmity.
Maggie Smith’s Desdemona is on very distant terms with the part. Obviously a mettlesome girl who would not for an instant have
endured domestic tyranny, she introduces facetious modern inflexions (for
instance her giggling reference to “These Men” in the bedchamber scene)
which clash destructively with the character.
Jocelyn Herbert’s set—a towering archway standing behind a slender
draped wooden frame—partly solves the problem of the play’s vagueness of
locality, and even manages to explain how Bianca comes to be wandering about in
Othello’s private quarters.