Stage Review: Cruelty is contagious in compassionate 'Othello'

Kristen Nicole Sayres/Special to The Commercial Appeal

Johnny Lee Davenport (left) sympathetically portrays the title character, and Paul Bernardo plays a spiteful Iago, in Tennessee Shakespeare Company's "Othello."

In some stagings of Shakespeare's "Othello," the villain of the play is the tragic flaw itself.

It lies dormant inside of each of us, and all it takes is a sworn enemy to tease it out, no matter how noble we think we are.

Kristen Nicole Sayres/Special to The Commercial Appeal

Johnny Lee Davenport (left) sympathetically portrays the title character, and Paul Bernardo plays a spiteful Iago, in Tennessee Shakespeare Company's "Othello."

In these productions, we have little pity for Othello. From his first appearance, we suspect that he's ready to be taken down a notch. Maybe it's in his aloofness, or in his pride, or in his marrying of an innocent young girl. At any rate, he eventually comes off as a hothead, and the audience strains to side with him even as his antagonist is driving him to murder his wife.

Director Dan McCleary, however, takes a very different approach in Tennessee Shakespeare Company's riveting new production of "Othello," running at St. George's Episcopal Church. One can pinpoint the exact moment that "the green-eyed monster" of jealousy enters his body.

Before then, actor Johnny Lee Davenport is the warmest, most likable warrior-general you've seen. He practically sighs with every glance from his new wife, Desdemona. His speeches are gentle and even humble.

When Iago (played by Paul Bernardo) plants the seed of suspicion and jealousy into Othello's brain, it looks like a poisoning. You can almost see Iago hitting the enter key on an invisible e-mail opened moments later in Othello's mind, where the virus begins to unpack and fan out in his brain.

His system is immediately infected. It manifests in physical signs, gives him epilepsy, causes his programming to become sluggish. At times, his whole system crashes into catatonic stillness.

Making Othello and Desdemona's fate an act of pure malice on the part of Iago, instead of the result of Othello's inability to rule his passions with reason, beautifully wraps the entire tragedy around a single monolog.

Emilia's line on why women cheat on their husbands, "The ills we do, their ills instruct us so," becomes a central thought of the play. Cruelty is something that we pass along.

Actress Vanessa Morosco (last seen as Cassius in Tennessee Shakespeare Company's "Julius Caesar") may not know she holds the moral lesson of this production in her capable hands, but her performance as Emilia is so stunning that there's also no reason to believe she doesn't know.

The depth and humanity of this nicely edited "Othello" is reflected in the simplicity of its staging.

Though the altar of St. George's Episcopal Church works well with this theme, it's still not an ideal theater-going environment. The pews are hard (bring a pillow for a three-hour sermon), and because the seating area is flat, you'll mostly be seeing the actors' heads.

Still, sound amplification has fixed some of the problems with bouncy acoustics.

The church itself has also been intelligently tied into the script through Bruce Bui's intuitive costume design. The Venetian garb elegantly matches, in color and cut, the wood interior of the church.

With the costumes drawing the architecture into the spirit of the play, one hears the lines about heaven and hell with new appreciation. Iago calls his own malfeasance "the divinity of hell."

Davenport, who has played the title role eight previous times, is perhaps the most sympathetic Othello I have seen. As Iago, Paul Bernado's words seethe with spite. If you can't find a modern pejorative to equate with the way he spits out the word "Moor," you haven't lived in the South long enough.

The ever-wilting bouquet of flowers that Michael Khanlarian's Roderigo carries around is a comic touch that makes his character a sad commentary on how innocence can be used as a force of villainy. Tony Molina Jr., who last played Bottom in "A Midsummer Night's Dream," is a strong and sanguine Cassio.

In his mission statement, McCleary has often promised new ways of looking at Shakespeare, and this "Othello," performed by a cast of accomplished Shakespeare veterans, does it not only with compassion, but also with a real Renaissance spirit. This show touches both the imagination and the conscience.

Tennessee Shakespeare Company's "Othello"

The play runs through Sunday at St. George's Episcopal Church, 2425 Germantown Road. Shows are 7:30 tonight and Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday. Tickets are $24-$36. Call 759-0604.

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