The Hulk isn't the only big guy dealing with anger management problems this summer. On a small stage at tucked-away New Theatre in Coral Gables, one of classic theater's tragically flawed figures is again surrendering to his own kind of green -- the murderous jealousy William Shakespeare famously dubbed the ``green-eyed monster.'' Othello is back. On the heels of last summer's box office-potent production of Hamlet, the ambitious little theater company is taking on another of Shakespeare's great tragedies, again pulling it off.

Director Rafael de Acha's 10-actor, artfully edited version of Othello is starkly simple in conception, yet it demonstrates that the four-century-old tale of a Moorish military man, his fair-skinned wife and the devil who engineers their destruction remains an incredibly gripping way to spend three hours.

Howard Schumsky's set design -- faux-marble platforms, stairs and arched entrances curtained in filmy black -- is an unadorned backdrop to the action, though Travis Neff's lighting provides an emotional commentary, and M. Anthony Reimer's original music becomes the aural equivalent of Neff's subtle work. Estela Vrancovich's costumes, with a few pointed exceptions, involve black, black and more black.

But from the moment that actor Carlos Orizondo begins to fill that empty space with the words that spell out Iago's venomous conniving, New Theatre's Othello is off and running, hurtling with finesse and dramatic firepower to its horrifying, deadly conclusion.

Key to the production's success are James Randolph's commanding Othello and Orizondo's scheming Iago, the first a powerful man with matching passions, the second a masterful human puppeteer.

Randolph, whose voice is a glorious Shakespearean instrument, is an imposing man even when he's conveying Othello's ardor for the gentle Desdemona (Tara Vodihn, first childlike, then genuinely pitiable). So when he flips into murderous madness, prodded by the gnat-like buzz of Iago's constant riffs on Desdemona's alleged infidelity, it feels far less surprising and more dangerous than the transformation of other Othellos.

Orizondo knows that Iago is the consummate actor, and he plays each moment to the hilt, taking the audience into his confidence, kissing up to the man he's determined to destroy, savoring every ounce of both humor and bald villainy. Opposite him as Iago's wife Emilia, Deborah L. Sherman conveys a complex mixture of loathing and longing, playing a lightning-quick game of keep-away with the handkerchief that will seal Desdemona's doom. And her own.

Fuente: The Miami Herald
Julio - 2003