Alexander Dodge concocts a crafty set design for Chicago Shakespeare’s decidedly uncrafty Othello. A sterile, brutalist facade of identical institutional windows, looking for all the world like a maximum security DMV, represents Venice. Its impersonal menace deftly conveys the unreflexive militarism that permeates Shakespeare’s world, a place where the mercenary known as Othello the Moor, who boasts he’s known nothing but soldiering since the age of eight, achieves near mythic status as a war hero. And where Iago, long Othello’s right-hand man in battle and worshipper of traditional military order—and, most importantly, of Othello himself—can suffer a Hamlet-like crisis of faith when inexperienced staff officer Cassio is promoted above him to lieutenant, leaving Iago the duty of marching around with a flag. The slight destroys Iago’s world order, setting him on a cunning, nihilistic rampage.
In essence, Munby creates a low-stakes tragedy. And that makes the cast’s propensity for stone-faced overearnestness and declaiming nearly every line in boldface italics particularly unconvincing. It’s an acting style that privileges grandiloquence over inner life, leaving the actors only a few emotional notes to hit repeatedly for three hours.
Through 4/10: Wed 1 and 7:30 PM, Thu-Fri 7:30 PM, Sat 3 and 8 PM, Sun 2 PM Chicago Shakespeare Theater 800 E. Grand 312-595-6800chicagoshakes.com $48-$88
