Othello At The Stratford Festival
Othello by William Shakespeare, at Stratford’s Tom Patterson Theatre, is the third Shakespeare I’ve seen this season and the third one I have liked. I admired it every bit as much as I did the RSC production in 2024. In my book that makes this season exceptional.
Director Haysam Kadri, former Artistic Director of Calgary’s The Shakespeare Company, makes an auspicious debut on the Tom Pat stage. He’s another director incoming Stratford Artistic Director Jonathan Church should consider for future helming assignments.
Othello, I scarcely need remind you, is the tragedy of the eponymous Moorish (i.e. Black) hero of Venice’s wars (André Sills), his ill-fated love for and marriage to Desdemona (Krystin Pellerin), a high born White woman, and the jealous rage of his “loyal” lieutenant, Iago (Evan Buliung), who exacts a hideous revenge.
With the assistance of Siobáhn Sleath’s incisive lighting design, Kadri has made Iago the narrator of this Othello, a sort of Virgil to our Dante in this particular descent into Hell.
This kind of dramatic underlining by a director can misfire, as it did in Stratford’s 2019 production, but Kadri – and Buliung – carry it off beautifully. The stage pictures he creates as Iago reveals his innermost thoughts are frequently striking.
Kadri make ingenious use of the Tom Pat stage, with Iago occasionally rising from a trap like a demon from the netherworld. This Othello also features some of the most exhilarating fight scenes I’ve seen at Stratford (fight direction by Anita Nittoly) and Desdemona’s death is masterfully limned.
Iago may just be Shakespeare’s best drawn villain. The role is famous for the sheer number of lines Iago has and Buliung is equal to the challenge. He handles the language with crystal clarity and virtually drips with bone-chilling evil as his plot advances.
Sills is one of the Festival’s most powerful actors – he was a smashing Coriolanus – but I have never seen him as volcanic as he is in this Othello. His towering rage as he falls under Iago’s spell is breathtaking. But the way he collapses into remorse when he comes to realize how deeply he has been led astray is equally impressive and makes this Othello one of the more genuinely tragic you are likely to see.
As Desdemona, Pellerin is tiny next to Sills, but she is every inch the high-born Venetian lady Shakespeare wrote. Her utter bewilderment at her lord’s unhinged change of heart towards her is truly heartbreaking.
As Emilia, Iago’s wife and Desdemona’s confidant, Jessica B. Hill, is simply wonderful, especially when she lays bare the awful truth over Desdemona’s death bed.
As always, I was left wondering why Emilia never figured out what her scum bag husband was up to with that handkerchief. But that’s not Hill’s problem and Shakespeare isn’t around to do rewrites.
Also worthy of note in the cast are Jordin Hall as the innocent if naive Cassio, who according to Iago was boinking Desdemona, and Rylan Wilkie as the doofus who really did want to boink Desdemona.
Director Kadri has given us a handsome Othello, with vaguely abstract sets by Brian Dudkiewicz that evoke ruined Byzantine palaces, and some smashing costumes by Gillian Gallow, especially for the women.
My only complaint with her costumes is the extremely unflattering leather breeches for the men. The baggy bottoms had a way of making me wonder if they were all wearing adult diapers.
That aside, I urge you to see this Othello. Once again I am chagrined to report that there were far too many empty seats. This production deserves to be sold out.
Othello continues at the Stratford Festival’s Tom Patterson Theatre through September 27, 2026. For more information and to purchase tickets, visit the Stratford Festival website.
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