Friday, June 11, 2004
Othello
Meno Fortas
Date: June 11 2004
Time: 1930
Venue: Victoria Theatre (Singapore Arts Festival 2004)
The downside of attending a subtitled play is to juggle between reading the subtitles from a hanging white screen and then diverting your attention to the stage but it gets easier once you are used to it. Otherwise, Othello staged by Meno Fortas is an interesting interpretation of one of Shakespeare’s greatest tragedy.
Interesting in many levels. Though I profess to be no Shakespeare scholar and even if you are not, it should not deter you from seeing Othello, which has a contemporary touch.
The minimalist score uses prerecorded oceanic waves, Indian sitar music; and life background music such as piano, human voices and bottled containers of water to reflect and conjure metabolic imageries.
Shakespeare’s tragedies that can be perceived as overtly dramatic for modern taste, under theatre director’s vision, Eimuntas Nekrošius, reveals the intricacies and beauty of Shakespearean performance and text.
Spanning 4 hours, this version of Othello is hardly boring and always exciting. The scenes impact with a theatrical choreography. The last scene of Act I in which Othello races around with Desdemona shows a boiling inner turmoil while the merry-making festivity in Cyprus is joyous as the score bounds in congruence with actors leaping around lightly.
Everything on stage inherits a symbol. The door that Desdemona holds to dearly while her father tries to touch her becomes both her baggage and protection against evil. A collection of water becomes a pool. Wind or chaos is figuratively the movement of canvas held on two ends by the actors.
Thematically, though Othello was in effect a Moor (black man) but portrayed on stage by a white actor, Vladas Bagdonas, the Shakespearean cautionary message against unbridled jealousy is not lost.
Vladas Bagdonas as Othello reveals both emotional and gritty side as he bellows out in pain when he was in doubt about Desdemona’s fidelity. The villain, Iago, portrayed by Rolandas Kazlas, is a comical joker who prefers to see life through a peep/ pot hole. His acting, as theatrical as Bagdonas, is the opposite symmetry of the former suffused with human nature.
Meno Fortas
Date: June 11 2004
Time: 1930
Venue: Victoria Theatre (Singapore Arts Festival 2004)
The downside of attending a subtitled play is to juggle between reading the subtitles from a hanging white screen and then diverting your attention to the stage but it gets easier once you are used to it. Otherwise, Othello staged by Meno Fortas is an interesting interpretation of one of Shakespeare’s greatest tragedy.
Interesting in many levels. Though I profess to be no Shakespeare scholar and even if you are not, it should not deter you from seeing Othello, which has a contemporary touch.
The minimalist score uses prerecorded oceanic waves, Indian sitar music; and life background music such as piano, human voices and bottled containers of water to reflect and conjure metabolic imageries.
Shakespeare’s tragedies that can be perceived as overtly dramatic for modern taste, under theatre director’s vision, Eimuntas Nekrošius, reveals the intricacies and beauty of Shakespearean performance and text.
Spanning 4 hours, this version of Othello is hardly boring and always exciting. The scenes impact with a theatrical choreography. The last scene of Act I in which Othello races around with Desdemona shows a boiling inner turmoil while the merry-making festivity in Cyprus is joyous as the score bounds in congruence with actors leaping around lightly.
Everything on stage inherits a symbol. The door that Desdemona holds to dearly while her father tries to touch her becomes both her baggage and protection against evil. A collection of water becomes a pool. Wind or chaos is figuratively the movement of canvas held on two ends by the actors.
Thematically, though Othello was in effect a Moor (black man) but portrayed on stage by a white actor, Vladas Bagdonas, the Shakespearean cautionary message against unbridled jealousy is not lost.
Vladas Bagdonas as Othello reveals both emotional and gritty side as he bellows out in pain when he was in doubt about Desdemona’s fidelity. The villain, Iago, portrayed by Rolandas Kazlas, is a comical joker who prefers to see life through a peep/ pot hole. His acting, as theatrical as Bagdonas, is the opposite symmetry of the former suffused with human nature.
