By Misha Berson for the Seattle Times, 8 May 2015
In a wordless prologue added to Seattle Shakespeare Company’s new production of “Othello,” the radiant couple Othello and Desdemona join in a private ritual. They kneel, dip their hands in water, and light a candle to kindle their new marriage.
In John Langs’ powerful staging at Cornish Playhouse, that ritual candle remains lit throughout the play — almost.
In the final harrowing scene, Othello extinguishes not only the flame, but his lover and love itself, with the ominous phrase, “Put out the light.”
The interplay of darkness and light, blackness and whiteness in the language, the symbols, the actions of “Othello” rank it among Shakespeare’s most psychologically dynamic and dramatically intense tragedies.
And in an interpretation as distilled and potent as this rendering, a season high point for Seattle Shakespeare Company, we are sucked into a toxic maelstrom of male competition, jealousy, carnality and treachery that will prove fatal to women — and victimize all.
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