It was a day that didn’t quite all go to plan.
We hadn’t been to Stratford-upon-Avon in a while with one thing or another. So, we were looking forward to rocking up to our usual stay at the Premier Inn in town for a new performance of Othello at the RSC theatre.
The hotel had had a paint job since the last time we came, but the signature purple was still in evidence everywhere. It’s not a colour I warm to, but their beds are extremely comfortable, and quite often they have a bath, instead of just a shower cubicle.
The woman at reception recognised us – we’ve been there so many times – and looked at her books for our reservation. As she peered down, I suddenly realised that the usual preparatory emails hadn’t come through.
‘No, I’m sorry, but I can’t see your name.’
‘Is it under Cunningham?’
It was a long shot, as I normally did the bookings. Evidently though, I didn’t this time, and neither had Anne.
‘Nothing under Cunningham either. And we’re fully booked I’m afraid.’
It wasn’t the best of starts to our visit; I felt like a complete chump. But at least the sun was out. The trees were resplendent in their autumn colours, and some buskers were entertaining the milling visitors. Luckily, there are lots of places to stay in Stratford, and with a bit of online jiggery pokery we booked in at the Pen and Parchment, just across the way. It was cheaper too although it didn’t have a bath.
We had a snack in the P&P, that turned out to be quite large, just a couple of hours before we’d booked dinner. That gastrointestinal overload plus the two large reds I had with the lunch ‘snack’ and the dinner were not necessarily the most conducive preparations for one of the tragedies.
As the big plays go, I think Othello is one of my least favourites, if I’m honest. I know that all of them are a little preposterous: Hamlet – a young man’s indecision leading to almost everybody about him dying including himself; King Lear – an old man’s stubbornness leading to almost everybody about him dying including himself; Macbeth – a middle-aged man’s greed leading to etc etc.
There is a bit of a theme going on. Ironically, with Othello, there isn’t quite the high body count as those others, yet for me, the success of this play hinges on how well Iago is played – that Machiavellian right-hand man who succeeds in turning Othello’s love of his wife into doubt, jealousy and murderous rage.
I’ve seen him played well. Lucian Msamati, playing a black Iago, did a brilliant depiction of a character who, for me, needs to show one face to the audience and another one entirely to the General. He convinced me to believe that Othello could tip over into this paranoia and I was hoping that the guy who played the duplicitous Father MacPhail in BBC1’s His Dark Materials could also pull off that difficult trick.
Qualifications:
- I had my eyes open, but my brain closed for the first few scenes in the play because the wine and food had taken over too much processing space.
- I realised that my feet, having been in pumps all day without respite had begun to feel hot and uncomfortable. As a woman who likes to spend most of her time barefoot, this is an issue.
Reader I was disappointed. I thought that the delivery of the lines felt stilted, too ‘dum de dum de’, very declaimed and unnatural. Will Keen, who played Iago, didn’t declaim so much as show off his character’s cunning word play. It just didn’t feel quite right, and for me, there wasn’t the right amount of two-facedness. Interestingly, Anne (possibly because she can handle her drink better than me) disagreed entirely. She thought it was a very good performance.
Her faux pas of the day was in a small mistake with ordering interval drinks. She’d done it in the car while we were crawling through some M6 heavy traffic. As I find some free chairs, she comes back with a glass of white wine for her, and an entire bottle of red for me!
Luckily it had a screw top, and I poured myself half a glass to try and forget my hot feet and the duff play. It didn’t get much better in the second half for me to be honest, but at least I’ve got some more wine to look forward to.
theleadlesspencil 
Disappointing – and a bottle of white would have been more useful for cooling your feet
I laughed out loud at the denouement of this almost tragedy of a day for you both! I agree about Othello – Iago is really the only point; and perhaps the strange manipulation of time in the play and my theory that the reason Othello loses his mind is because he never gets any sleep. Would sleep deprivation be a plausible line of defence for murder?
As an Eng.Lit. teacher, I loved teaching Hamlet best, then Lear, R&J and Macbeth. I’ve taught Othello and took my A Level students to see a production with Lenny Henry in the lead. Conrad Nelson played Iago but I can’t remember his performance. I never taught the play again. I walked out of an RSC Lear in the ‘90s. I think the play’s unwatchable but I do enjoy reading/ teaching it. Hamlet is a joy to teach – I enjoy throwing all the Freudian readings into the analysis. However, it’s hit and miss on the stage: Ralph Fiennes was a big yawn; Daniel Day Lewis excruciatingly bad. However, Andrew Scott at the Almeida more recently was superb. And a performance involving puppets (for the player king scenes) at the Young Vic years ago was innovative.
I’ve never taught or read Antony and Cleopatra nor seen a production, unless you count Sid James and Amanda Barrie in ‘Carry on Cleo’. Talking of which, for screen Shakespeare, nothing beats Kenneth Williams’s Julius Caesar in that film: “Infamy! Infamy! They’ve all got it in for me!”
Will must have been spinning in his grave with jealousy at that line.
Enjoy the rest of the wine!
PS Dean saw the famous A&C with Anthony Hopkins and Judy Dench. He said it was dreadful!
Talking of A&C, we’re in the middle of watching Cleopatra on the TV (it’s really long) with Liz Taylor et al. After which we’re going to watch Carry on Cleo because they used the same set afterwards! Looking forward to the classic Infamy line!
We saw Anthony Sher as Lear at the RSC and he really wasn’t great – that was another bad day (we didn’t realise we had matinee tickets, so were a tad late and had to creep in at the start of Act 2 because ‘Tony’ didn’t want to be ruffled!