Marlon Tuttle Jay Morong LBST 1104 October 18, 2013

My Experience

On Wednesday October 16th 2013, I went to see the production Othello in Robinson Theater. It was performed by the Actors from the London Stage. The play was written by William Shakespeare the greatest play writer of all time. What is the play about? Othello, our tragic hero, is a general in the Venetian army, and he has to choose another man, Cassio, to be his lieutenant. This angers Iago, who wanted the position for himself. Iago is going to take revenge on Othello, by turning him against his own wife. I think the playwright and the creative team was trying to accomplish a sense of isolation among the characters. As soon as Othello, Iago, Desdemona, Emilia, and Roderigo have come to Cyprus, they have nothing to do but target upon one another. Isolation empowers many of the plays most important effects: Iago frequently speaks in soliloquies. Othello stands apart while Iago talks with Cassio in a scene and is left alone onstage with the bodies of Emilia and Desdemona for a few moments in the production. Most importantly, Othello is visibly isolated from the other characters by his physical stature and the color of his skin. Iago is an expert at manipulating the detachment between characters, isolating his victims so that they fall prey to their own obsessions. At the same time, Iago, of compulsion always standing apart, falls victim to his own obsession with revenge. The characters cannot be islands, the play seems to say: self-isolation as an act of self-preservation

leads ultimately to self-destruction. Such self-isolation leads to the deaths of Roderigo, Iago, Othello, and even Emilia. With the elements of the theater or production I thought they did a decent job. The first is script/text, scenario, and plan. This is the starting point of the theatrical performance. The element most often considered as the beginning of the playwright in theatre. The playwrights script is the text by which theatre is created. The script, scenario, or plan is what the director uses as a blue print to build a production from. I thought the actors did a good job with this, with only 5 actors to use. I thought right away the actors, got straight into the production. The characters is the next element I like to discuss. These are the people presented in the play that are involved in the perusing plot. Each character should have their own distinct personality, age, appearance, beliefs, social economic background, and language. I thought the Actors from the London Stage did a poor job with this. I was so confuse in the beginning of the production. First, there was only five actors. Each actor was playing two different characters. I didnt know when they were switching characters. They should have more than five actors. It was really hard to keep up with in the beginning, they were going so fast. Another, problem I had was the lack of costumes designs and creativity. Maybe it was because the lack of actors, but no excuses. I knew it was hard for me to keep up with the changing of characters every five seconds. They hardly look any different when they were playing different characters. One actor pants were small, and kept showing his butt. I thought that was unprofessional. They really struggle at becoming a whole different character. The actors needed more help, and better costumes. But, there was one that they did well at. The actors really played their parts well. I could see the emotion and power they had in their character. The

actors molded with their character well. If I didnt know that it was play, I would have thought they were their normal selves. Language is the next element. The word choices made by the playwright and the expression of the actors of the language. Language and dialog delivered by the characters moves the plot and action along, provides exposition, and defines the distinct characters. Each playwright can create their own specific style in relationship to language choices they use in establishing character and dialogue. The language in the production, I thought it was very good. The actors did very well with wearing the characters emotions on their sleeves, with that came powerful and clear language. The actors were forceful when needed to be. I could understand the language well. For example, when Othello told his wife to show me the handkerchief. He was very forceful, and you could see the anger and power behind his voice. You could tell Othello wanted to hit or kill his wife right then and there. The kissing between him and his wife, you could see the passion with the actors. Last, I want to discuss the action/plot element. In the plot of a play, characters are involved in conflict that has a pattern of movement. The action and movement in the play begins from the initial entanglement, through rising action, climax, and falling action to resolution. I thought the action was decent. The actors could had did better. I still think that they should have more than five actors on stage. The action was kind of corny, not really creative with it. For example, two of the character was supposed to be hurt or dying but instead they are playing two other character that are alive and well. Both actors were rotating from being hurt/injured and supposed to be alive and well. I thought that was silly and confusing. I felt they were making a fool out themselves.

In conclusion, I thought the production was a decent production. They had there ups and downs. I saw more downs than ups, to be honest. Would I recommend this production? I would say no. They need more actors. If you have more actors, then they can focus on that one character throughout the play. That would make the production even better. In all it was good to see the production of Othello.