Shakespeare is Shakespeare is Shakespeare. And yet, every time we think he is nothing more than an overrated and under-talented man of little variation and few real classics, there is something eternal, something brilliant about this 400-year-old playwright that shocks even the most modern audience.
Yet again, a new production will push out your ill-conceived prejudices - this time, while you watch a company of actors use dazzling subtleties and clever drolleries performing director Jason Slavick's rendition of "Othello" at the BCA Plaza Theatre.
Yet again, you will be a believer.
The play begins on the streets of Venice, where two men, a craven Roderigo and a devious Iago, are arguing about a certain Venetian beauty-turned-bride named Desdemona. Although Roderigo wants to claim her as his own, Desdemona has recently married the famed Othello, known for his exotic birth and his fearless attributes in battle. Hearing this, Iago, a fellow soldier sopping in bitterness at Othello's promotion of another ensign - Cassio - to lieutenant, agrees to help Roderigo break up this recent union.
Iago develops a trap implicating Cassio as Desdemona's lover by using his own wife Emilia's role as Desdemona's mistress, Othello's trust and confidence in Cassio, and other lucky factors to fuel his plans.
Soon, Othello believes that Desdemona, his keen and radiant bride, is nothing but a town whore. With this false belief, he resolves that he must dispose of this once promising union and happy relationship, not by divorce, but by murder.
The "complications" between Othello and his Desdemona implicate - like in any good Shakespearean drama - almost every other innocently misled character. At the final bloody scene, Lodovico speaks words of wisdom over an injured Cassio, Iago and the lifeless bodies of Roderigo, Emilia, Desdemona and Othello himself. Although the tangled web of lies has finally sorted itself, Iago's deceit has taken the lives of three of Venice's most staunch citizens - all three led astray by Iago's false reality and his ruinous abilities of persuasion.
These catalysts are one of the reasons "Othello" is particularly relevant in today's chaotic world. In many other Shakespearian works, misunderstandings and untruths are parts of particularly amusing plots that end well. Yet treachery in this play is particularly devastating.
The director of the play, Jason Slavick, believes that this is because of the paranoia that pervaded Venice at the time the story takes place. Mistrust, fear, prejudice - all become commonplace in a city where an almost McCarthy-like mania has advanced among the citizens.
This theme is significant as well in the over-vigilance of our modern world - where jumping to conclusions and acting on this misguided faith has proved injurious to numerous citizens and non-citizens combined.
Furthermore, Iago's lies are particularly pernicious, because they involve some truth, a kernel of reality in a sea of mirrors and smoke. Thus, too, it is easy to see that false actions taken on the basis of actuality are even more believable to an easily-swayed audience.
Iago's character is remarkably represented by the actor who plays him, Jonathan Epstein (whose other theater achievements include Prospero in the Boston Theatre Work's "The Tempest" - another role that serves as its play's central protagonist).
His ability to express the smallest and subtlest expressions in a flicker of his eyes or a tone in his voice is by far the most crafted skill in the play, and he far outshines even the play's namesake, Othello himself.
In fact, although Othello, played by Tony Molina, is believable in his part, and Desdemona, played by Susanna Apgar, portrays a flat character with all the independence of a modern woman, no one usurps Epstein's spotlight as Iago.
Adding to the acting company's formidable abilities is a cleverly designed set, whose background consists of a number of red and black swinging doors. They are used at times as entrances for actors, or as props for Iago to rotate round and round, as he spins his treacherous web.
The rest of the set - or lack thereof - consists of a small platform mid-stage. Even though it is becoming en vogue in our era to place little emphasis on props and sets, instead to placing our faith in actors and their abilities to transcend their settings and absorb our attentions. This play, however, would have been enhanced with a touch of accessorizing on this Spartan stage, although its starkeness did not really detract from the play itself.
The costumes, too, were a bit dull but appropriate. For most of the play, the men were dressed in military wear that looked like it had been rescued from the Falklands War, and the women wore elegant but subtle skirts and dresses.
Thus, even those expecting much from this production will finally be contented with this timeless play. Shakespeare crafted an exemplary theme, one that cannot be tarnished in our state of paranoia or become stagnant in our changing world. Jason Slavick and the cast of "Othello" deserve to be commended for bringing us sight in our time of blindness, and urging you to retire your high school prejudices and reawaken a love for the classics. After all, there's a reason why Shakespeare is Shakespeare is Shakespeare.
