othello

It seems in London, as in Russia, it is often who you know that matters. Othello tickets went on sale last year, sold out within hours, and the prices on the internet soared to, in some cases over 2,000 pounds. Even rubbish seats were going for 500 and the guardian described the show as a “super luxury ticket item.” And yet, thanks to my collegue conar, I found myself last night in the front row, practically for free, with some of my work collegues from the fiction department of the bookshop.
Yet I can see why people with money would be willing to pay obscene sums to see such a show, it was amazing. As we left the theatre conar said he felt like he had been beaten up, and it is true that was the feeling. Othello is of course intense, but the intimacy of the Donmar theatre (we were close enough for the actors spit to land on us) and the talent of the cast made it even more brutal.
The cast was amazing: Ewan McGregor as Iago (hence the ticket prices) was convincingly evil and cunning. I had had some difficulty imagining him doing Shakespeare, as opposed to, well, trainspotting, but he fit into the part perfectly. Tom hiddleston was phenomenal as cassio (in some ways even strong than mcgregor, dare I say?). Yet the best of all was chiwetel ejiofor, who was Othello. The only weak link in my view was Kelly reilly, who unfortunately played Desdemona. Her reading of shakespeares verse was a bit painful to the ear, and reminded me that I was seeing a play, not listening to a live conversation, which was the feeling I had the rest of the time. But what she lacked was more than made up for by the others. The ending is of course brutal, leaving no possibility left for redemption or hope of any kind…, members of the audience were crying (a Korean girl looked like she had completely lost it and I heard a member of staff asking if she needed help) I was shaking and we all walked out of the theatre in a stunned silence, which is, I suppose, the ways things should be after watching such a tragedy.