Plesser as Othello

God, I have so many things I want to blog about but am incredibly behind on. One of those things was talking about the acting in Othello. I keep writing a draft of this entry which LJ refuses to autosave (grawr) so I will get through at least a bit, post it, and finish the rest as I can.

The first person whose acting I wanted to commend is of course the title character, the excellent Jonathan Plesser as Othello. I would like to take a moment to recap Plesser's history on the stage for Hold Thy Peace. Brought in at the last moment to take the role of Albany in King Lear, he was to be commended for cramming his lines in the wings at tech week and doing a serviceable job getting thrown into the deep end. He was then cast as Lysander in Midsummer, a role that was good for him but I confess at the time did not do much to grab my notice; I remember thinking he was just okay, maybe even a little flat. But when he became Friar Lawrence in Midsummer, that's when I sat up and took notice. His performance was actually quite good, showing leaps and bounds of improvement in expression and believability. That's what really got me interested in him as as actor, and cued me into his potential to grow. It pushed me to ask him if we would audition for To Think of Nothing, which to my honor he did. Once there, he showed an amazing depth of understanding and insight into his character, and in fact got me to see one of his pieces of the show in a totally different way, which we ended up going with and vastly improved the text. His excellent subsequent performances as Caesar and Polixenes served to solidify how he was growing in skill with every show.

Which brings up now to Othello, his most challenging role to date and a very desirable part in terms of opportunities for an actor to show his emotional range. The part is particularly demanding in that the play really doesn't work if the Othello does not inspire sympathy in the audience, because then they just dismiss him as a monster and the show's tragic weight is lost. Plesser portrayed Othello as a brave, exceptionally talented man and soldier who has had to fight for every ounce of respect and esteem he's ever received. It made it understandable why he would be so succeptible to anything that suggests that he cannot count upon actually being loved for his own sake, that his position is constantly assailed by all manner of affronts to his self-worth. I loved his choice to play Othello as wracked with sorrow as opposed to suffused with rage, which made him worlds more understandable to me. He related well to the other characters, showing real tenderness toward Caitlin as Desdemona, and fantastic chemistry with Lenny in following the path Iago was leading him down. His progression from finally feeling satisfied with his place in the world into wounded suspicious fury worked well, and I especially liked how he spent the final scene sobbing more than raging. In combination with his insecurity, it made me really believe he was dying inside from the thought of destroying what he most loved, but felt that the only way to maintain his fragile self-respect was to see that justice was done. In addition to the huge emotional weight he carried, I also like the small details of his performance, such as the way he even endeavored to push his own limits by creating a different physicality unlike anything that came naturally to him, which I certainly commend. There was also the cool little idea he had about Othello missing the final kiss he tries to give Desdemona before he dies. All these things together show how deeply he got into the character, and how hard he worked to bring him to life.

I shall move on to going over the others' performances as well, but for now, I just want to say how amazing it's been to see Plesser go from neophyte still finding his stage presence to the new leading man of Hold Thy Peace. Well done, sir.