There are productions of Othello that make you wonder why the play isn’t simply retitled Iago. This was absolutely not one of them. Tom Morris’s staging, anchored by David Harewood’s fierce, clear-sighted (until he wasn’t) general, restores the centre of gravity to the noble soldier who is undone by ‘the green-eyed monster’ rather than upstaged by the man who summons it.
Morris opens with confidence, leaning unapologetically into the comedy latent in Act 1. Critics have long disagreed on how far directors should push Shakespeare’s early humour, and Morris tests that boundary with relish. The audience certainly enjoyed themselves: the first scenes were peppered with genuine laughter. A sly wink to the dreaded ‘head beneath shoulders’ school of over-literal staging solved a textual issue for me - Othello isn’t lying, he is having fun. Too much laughter in Act 1? - that question is still up for debate. For me, the laughs were welcome - until they weren’t. Iago, played by Toby Jones with a mischievous lightness, edged a little too close to the comic valet. A comic Iago can work, but by the time I joined the queue (such a ridiculously long queue - ushers were radioing each other) for the loo at the interval, I overheard more than one person wondering whether the humour had softened the menace. Less open to debate was Roderigo’s silly beard, which reappeared with baffling determination. Not every comic device needs a reprise.
However, all is not lost, Morris uses stylisation cleverly: slow, almost ritualistic movements isolate Iago at key moments, giving his inner thoughts a visual architecture. The storm sequence, with its deliberate, stylised ‘O’ of motion, was striking - a reminder that simplicity on stage can still surprise. The music was also superb: atmospheric without ever overwhelming the text. Other critics aren’t so sure about it - I loved it.
The second half, as with many productions, was where the real power landed. Harewood’s Othello began as a strong, steady man - a soldier of discipline, clarity, and emotional intelligence - and watching that man choke, twist, and turn back on itself was devastating. If the earlier comedy risked throwing the emotional arc off balance, the later scenes corrected it with ferocity. Emilia, slightly undercut earlier (and I still question why she did not more actively help Desdemona in the bedroom scene), emerged towering at the end.
The ending was exceptional. Harewood’s final speech - ‘I took by the throat the circumcised dog…’ was delivered with a clarity and self-condemnation that pulled the whole production taut. His suicide did not merely end the play; it blew its own emotional circuitry. It was that strong.
On balance, the elemental power of Harewood’s performance and the production’s insistence that this is Othello’s play carries the evening.
This production reclaims him.
