I went to see the Bell Shakespeare Company’s production of Othello on the weekend. I generally enjoy Bell’s productions of plays, most of which I’ve seen when the company has toured Ballarat. Travelling down to Melbourne to watch it was a first for me. Unfortunately, the experience was not a good one.

The trouble can be laid at the feet of the lead actors, who, while competent, seemed miscast. Othello, as played by Wayne Blair, lacked presence. This was a grave flaw in the production: Othello needs to be seen as the hero for the play to work; instead Othello seemed barely able to speak properly, rather than the articulate general that Shakespeare wrote about.

Othello may say of himself, “Rude am I in my speech,/And little bless’d with the soft phrase of peace”, but he’s lying. He’s meant to be a great speaker – that’s how he wooed Desdemona, after all. Blair was indeed Rude in his speech, and suffered likewise.

This was not aided by Marcus Graham’s Iago, who terribly mauled the phrasing of some lines, distorting their meaning. Although generally played well, the audience was laughing with Iago, and not despising him. As the personification of manipulative evil in the play – someone who will destroy everything good – this indicated a great failure on Graham’s part. The depth of his misplaying of the part could be seen by his stance of complete triumph as he was being condemned to death; Iago is scheming not to be found out and to achieve wealth and power – it’s not a simple hatred of Othello. At this point Iago needs to be desolate, but this stance, along with the weakness of Othello, really turned the play from “The Tragedy of Othello” into “The Triumph of Iago”. I was not pleased with the result.

The play wasn’t all bad. A real find was Tom Wren, who played the part of Cassio. I was really impressed with his earnest acting and appearance; he only graduated last year, and I’d really like to see him again in future.

I have mixed feelings about Leeanna Walsman’s Desdemona – she played the part well, but I felt she had problems with the quality of her voice; it was distorted too much by her attempts to project it. It was understandable, but not pleasant, which is a pity because mostly she was quite good. Ron Haddrick’s Duke of Venice had too small a part for such an effective performance, and Anni Finsterer does a very good turn as Emilia.

The costuming was poor, to say the least; whatever you’ve got around at home seemed the motto. The set? Bare and minimalistic, which I’m somewhat tired of seeing.

I got the words, but not the sense of the play. A failed production, in my book.