4/16/2023 0 Comments Othello handkerchiefNot least, in this production, how he ended up married to Sheila Atim’s frank and fabulous Emilia. Shakespeare’s villain is pleated tight with mystery. With André Holland’s Othello, dropping bait like a dedicated angler, he stays still and bides his time. With Roderigo or Cassio, he trots around the stage, a ceaseless feint and swerve to keep everyone off balance. His Iago too seems legible as sunlight, especially when he makes us giggle. He looked not the full duke – two princes short of a Tower – but gradually revealed a steel trap of a performance. His Richard III played the simpleton, and played us too. Rylance has snared the Globe audience before. His armoury of fey twinkles, his double takes as easy as breathing, his delicious vocal murmurs that caress his lines like bubble wrap – it’s intensely loveable. Why does it matter? Well, there’s possibly no more charming actor alive than Rylance. It mostly stays stashed – Iago is a master of keeping things close to his chest – but every so often, usually when alone, Rylance will bring it out. Desdemona herself (Jessica Warbeck), after losing the strawberry hankie, puts a clean square of cloth in her belt and hopes Othello won’t notice (fat chance).Īnd Rylance’s Iago has a hankie of his own: a fat pad of cloth that he tucks inside his ensign’s jacket, neat between the first and second buttons. Roderigo (Steffan Donnelly), Iago’s uncomprehending stooge, has a fancy one that covers his face as he lies dead. When I reached out, he chidingly snatched it away.Ĭlaire van Kampen’s sleek psychological thriller of a production keeps clutter to a minimum, but there are several other handkerchiefs on view. It makes an eye-catching accessory – especially when Mark Rylance’s Iago dandled it in front of my nose, as I stood at the very front of the stage. The 17th-century critic Thomas Rymer mockingly suggested the play should have been titled The Tragedy of the Handkerchief, as it warns ‘all good wives that they should look to their linen.’ At Shakespeare’s Globe, Desdemona’s handkerchief is a handsome chestnut number, twinkling with strawberry-coloured sequins. When Shakespeare’s hero finds that Desdemona has apparently mislaid the cherished keepsake from his mother, decorated with strawberries and traced with delicate patterns, he becomes suspicious when led to believe that she has casually handed it to another man, he becomes murderous. No, not that handkerchief, the one that convinces Othello that his wife has been unfaithful.
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