No-frills Shakespeare

Sacramento has the usual accoutrements of a mid-sized, middlebrow American metropolis—an NBA team, a Hard Rock Café franchise, and a zoo. We also get visits from Broadway blockbusters on tour—Phantom of the Opera will be back (yawn) for a three-week return engagement in June.

But, among other things, we lack professionally mounted Shakespearean tragedy. Othello may be one of the great plays in the language, but in seven years as a theater correspondent in River City, I have yet to see it mounted here with an Equity cast. (Ditto Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear.) Shakespeare calls for lots of actors, which means a big payroll; in addition, audiences are by now conditioned to traveling to Ashland or Santa Cruz for this sort of thing.

So the task—actually, the honor—falls to college students and community groups. And that’s basically what we’re looking at with the current effort by the Actor’s Theatre. A simple set with ordinary props, the sort of stuff that can be found at garage sales (and probably was, in this case). Modern dress—Iago’s dressed in Army surplus khaki, Othello wears a beret. The lighting and sound are rudimentary.

You couldn’t do Phantom of the Opera with these paltry resources—it just wouldn’t work. But Othello doesn’t need special effects. Shakespeare, after all, didn’t have electricity at his disposal (to say nothing of enormous falling chandeliers). One of the enduring wonders of his craft is the way an energetic, dedicated group on a tight budget can take on a project like Othello and bring the script to life.

Which is precisely what happens here. It’s by no means seamless—some actors rush through their lines in the opening scenes, and there’s clearly a gap in terms of experience and ability between the community actors in the leading roles and some of the supporting cast.

But the emotions you need to get this great old script airborne—love, jealousy, hatred and revenge, arranged in a fateful, deadly combination—come up like geysers through all the critical scenes. Jeff Young, in the title role, handles himself with calm nobility that gives way to burning interior rage—an impressive performance. And versatile Scott Divine makes for a lean, mean and very calculating Iago—almost like a poisonous snake as he hisses to the audience about his plans, switching to false smiles and mock sincerity as he spins lies and sets traps for the characters around him. Nanci Zoppi also connects as Desdemona—the scenes leading up to her killing are powerful stuff, making the tragedy of Othello’s errors three-dimensional. Directors Ed Claudio and Anthony D’Juan keep your interest sustained, even though it’s a familiar tale.

So forgive the modest production values and occasional inconsistencies, and admire the way this little group brings a great play to life. And credit to Ed Claudio and his company for carrying the torch, at a time when larger, better-funded groups avoid such classics.