Othello

Synopsis: Video recording, using a single, fixed camera, of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s 1985 production of Othello. Directed by Terry Hands with Ben Kingsley as Othello and David Suchet as Iago.
Language: English
Country: Great Britain
Medium: Video
Technical information: Colour / Sound
Recording date: 13 Nov 1985
Duration: 187 mins

Director

Terry Hands

Writer

William Shakespeare

Music

Nigel Hess

Production Design

Ralph Koltai

Costume

Alexander Reid

Cast

General: Ben Kingsley did not black up for the role but played Othello as an accentuated Arab. The intense physical relationship displayed between Iago and Othello was the starting point for many of the reviews, one critic noting the physical similarities between Suchet and Kingsley and suggesting that Othello and Iago are two halves of a whole. RSC productions of the play from hereon have cast a black actor in the title role.

"Ralph Koltai’s Star Wars set with its back wall of two massive black plastic rectangles, both reflective and transparent, each outlined by frames of bending light. Neither Venetian, except for a ripple on black walls and an impassive golden lion witness to the murders, nor Cypriot, it is a country of a mind in which darkness dominates." David Nathan, Jewish Chronicle (4 October 1985).
History: Press night 24 April 1985. The production transferred to the Barbican.
Stills: Stills from, and design notes on, the production are available on the Arts and Humanities Performing Arts Data Service (AHDS) at http://ahds.ac.uk/performingarts/collections/designing-shakespeare.htm
Reviews: Suchet, David ‘Iago in Othello’ in Jackson, Russell Players of Shakespeare 2 pp79-99. David Suchet discusses his preparation for, and conception of the character, especially Iago’s psychopathic jealousy. Kerrigan, John TLS: The Times Literary Supplement (11 October 1985), p 1140.

Name: Royal Shakespeare Company
Web: https://www.rsc.org.uk External site opens in new window
Address: Royal Shakespeare Theatre
Waterside
Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire
CV37 6BB

British Universities Film & Video Council