Lara Foot’s Othello at the Toyota Stellenbosch Woordfees 2024: Angelique Filter’s review

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Lara Foot’s Othello recently played at the Baxter. It is also on stage at this year’s Toyota Stellenbosch Woordfees. The play was discussed as part of the Advanced Text and Performance Analysis at the Drama Department of Stellenbosch University. A few students from Annel Pieterse’s class shared their reviews. Below is the review by Angelique Filter.

Lara Foot’s Othello: A theatre piece of starkly relevant sociopolitical commentary

The classical Shakespearean tragedy Othello, most provocatively adapted and directed by Lara Foot, was showing at the Baxter Theatre from 6 April to 4 May 2024. This production, reimagined in the context of the German colonisation of South West Africa, was certainly thought-provoking, raising critical questions about our current postcolonial landscape.

As the curtains first lift, you are visually confronted with harsh angles, imposing grey walls and a giant three-dimensional map of Africa, the fate and future of which is to be decided by a few German generals existing in this seemingly lifeless and empty space. A few hostile utterances by a general are all that is needed to fracture the map, a most striking visual symbol of the scramble for Africa. As the space shifts, what first appeared as a map, later looks like a skull – an ominous foreshadowing.

The exquisite stage design by Gerhard Marx continues to inspire awe. As the setting becomes South West Africa, now Namibia, we are transported to and immersed in this windswept desert, with a spectacular image of a soldier struggling in the face of the wind’s formidable force, recreated almost viscerally with lighting (design by Patrick Curtis), smoke machines and a ghostly soundscape. The rolling on of carts carrying mounds of the deceased, appearing as ships in the fog and steered by the soldiers, who sit on the mounds as if on ordinary benches, elicits an eerie, sickly feeling in the gut, akin to Brechtian notions of the grotesque alienation effect. The symbols of Marx’s design are most poignant – we are reminded here of the Nama-Herero genocide in the early 1900s.

The design takes on an almost surrealist style, where rocks ominously start lowering down from the heavens; at other times, it is the lowering of branches, creating the depth of a moon-lit forest where something is not quite right. I think an even more immersive and cathartic audience experience could have been elicited through further exploration into this surrealist realm in the design, making real the inner landscape of our protagonist. I am particularly curious about how scenes staged in more realistic stage settings could look in similar metaphoric spaces.

The surrealist spaces ooze tension, imbalance and foreboding, echoed in Lara Foot’s decolonial and decentralised adaptation of the classical text, and interspersed with powerful excerpts from the intertext, Frantz Fanon’s Black skin, white masks. This text perfectly parallels the psyche of the black man, with his internalised inferiority complex and search for belonging and identity in the context of white colonialism, as explored in Othello. Resulting impulses, such as when Othello breaks away from the ensemble (now quite literally excluded) and moves into the auditorium as the house lights briefly come on, only to be called back to “play his part”, make the Shakespearean text a lot more real and direct, subverting what is expected and delivering crucial commentary. What is the part Othello has to play, and who is Othello aside from this role? What is our responsibility?

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Equally effective is the use of Xhosa within the play, predominantly when Othello is at his most vulnerable – we all know those moments when we feel something so deeply that we can express it only in our home language. Afrikaans and German are the other two languages used in the play (besides English), although I feel these were slightly less effective.
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Equally effective is the use of Xhosa within the play, predominantly when Othello is at his most vulnerable – we all know those moments when we feel something so deeply that we can express it only in our home language. Afrikaans and German are the other two languages used in the play (besides English), although I feel these were slightly less effective. The German is used briefly and not very convincingly in the beginning of the play, as though to “show” us the nationality of the characters, but then never again. The German then “becomes” Afrikaans for the rest of the production. While I understand that these are both languages hierarchically associated with colonial rule, and that Afrikaans speaks more directly to a South African audience, the rules of the world and stylistic conventions are not established clearly enough for me that I can look past the realist historical inaccuracy (in the sense that Afrikaans was spoken in Namibia only many years later) and see the language as purely symbolic for a palimpsestic colonial theme, for which it is of course extremely effective.

Inhabiting this world Lara Foot has ambitiously created, are incredibly complex characters. Atandwa Kani as Othello has a most commanding presence, with full commitment to the role and strong vocal delivery. His best moments are certainly his soliloquys and intimate moments he shares with the audience, where we are allowed into his mind to have empathy for his immense inner turmoil. The mystical scene in the “woods” is captivating, where Othello yearns to reconnect with his African roots and has his first epileptic fit, as he calls on his ancestors and is surrounded by an echoing soundscape. Kyle Shephard’s layered musical composition especially enhances the rawness of emotion and the spiritual element of these scenes.

In some instances, where Othello is onstage with other characters, this serious subtext of his character gets a bit lost due to a seeming disconnect among the ensemble, although this may have been a deliberate choice. This spills over into physical incongruences, such as in the fighting scenes, which could have benefited from more choreographic precision and clear decisions regarding the use of realistic or suggested violence. The chemistry between Othello and Desdemona on this performance night seemed somewhat forced, especially during the earlier scenes of passion. This disconnect, in addition to the choice of making Othello a victim in his murder of Desdemona rather than granting him final choice and agency, somewhat undermines the affective impact of the climax and the stakes of what follows. It is, however, certainly a narrative that deserves to be explored, considering this specific decolonial reading and its psychological implications.

Carla Smith makes for a beautiful Desdemona, with her ethereal presence and spirited life energy. The choice in making her bold and assured, rather than subservient and naïve, is certainly refreshing; however, the large age gap between her and Othello, such a prominent factor in the classical text in terms of the unequal power dynamics, now becomes absent, as her performed maturity makes her appear close to Othello’s age.

Similarly notable is the choice made for Iago’s character (played brilliantly by Albert Pretorius). This interpretation is far more overtly villainous and vulgar in nature, allowing for some pleasantly surprising comedic and entertaining moments. In these moments, Iago often explicitly breaks the 4th wall, scheming openly with the audience. This distinct take, however, sometimes flattens the terrifying and disturbing side to Iago’s masterful manipulation – that which ensnares Othello and makes Othello’s character arc, leading to regression and delusion, all the more enrapturing.

Carlo Daniels offers a phenomenal performance of Cassio that is immensely grounded, accessible and real. The comedic relief of Roderigo (Wessel Pretorius) is also highly enjoyable. Though the character is played in a very different style – far more caricature-like, which is somewhat jarring – he perfectly fulfils the function of the poor yet endearing fool. Overall, there seems to be a discrepancy in the various actors’ performance styles.

The standout performance to me is that of Emilia, by Faniswa Yisa. Her gravitas and generosity add enormous depth to the production, and the humorous twinkle in her eye enables instantaneous empathy from the audience. The casting of a black woman as Emilia is a genius choice – it adds complex racial-gender tensions between her and Iago, while hinting at themes of racist fetishisation and the violation and objectification of black bodies. Furthermore, it contrastingly adds a new sense of comradery and shared humanity between her and Othello, most palpable in the play’s denouement.

This production, despite a few stylistic incongruences and instances of ensemble disconnect, is certainly worth watching. It is not simply a tragedy of love and jealousy. The roots of this tragedy lie far deeper, in the dim parts of our subconscious, where we have buried the remnants of the guilt, pain and fear embedded in our colonial past. What is our relational identity today?

Also read:

Toyota Stellenbosch Woordfees 2024: ’n onderhoud met Saartjie Botha

Toyota Stellenbosch Woordfees 2024: Stap in Idasvallei

Toyota Stellenbosch Woordfees 2024: Skatkis vol stories – ’n onderhoud met Danneline Ramsden

Toyota Stellenbosch Woordfees 2024: ’n onderhoud met Cintaine Schutte oor ’n Begin

Lara Foot’s Othello at the Toyota Stellenbosch Woordfees 2024: Merwe van Gent’s review

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