Fires in the Dark

Judy's been working intensively with members of the cast in small groups of twos and threes -- Othello and Desdemona (Jason Bowen and Brooke Hardman), Iago and Roderigo (Ken Cheeseman and Doug Lockwood)-- and then when everyone reassembles to work on the scenes in rehearsal, it's palpable how many more layers there are to the relationships, how they've been deepened and complicated. We saw this happen yesterday working on Act 1, which is such an exciting Act.

Shakespeare beat David Mamet to it: Mamet says start the conflict immediately and don't bother to explain it to the audience because we'll figure it out if we get excited and drawn in -- and that's what happens in Act 1: it's nighttime, people can't see each other clearly, they're shouting in the street, there are insults, mistaken identities, confusion, alarm, armed assaults -- and behind it all, Iago, "a moral pyromaniac setting fire to all of reality" (Harold Bloom).

As the actors worked the opening scenes you could feel the currents of energy surging more and more strongly through the rehearsal space where Jason Ries, ASP's Production Manager, has built a replica of the playing area they'll be using at Villa Victoria. The actors explored how everyone is pulled in many directions as a result of the sudden intersecting crises that butt up against one another in the opening scenes -- the intense personal crisis resulting from the Othello-Desdemona elopement, and the simultaneous public one of the military threat. People are moving fast through the streets at night -- the military machine's marching soldiers -- the angry civilians coming after Othello -- the political powers-that-be calling an emergency night meeting -- and the family in crisis whose passions spill over into the public setting.

Joyce Van Dyke
Dramaturg