I Forked Out Big, Big Bucks To See Denzel Washington and Jake Gyllenhaal in Othello. Should You?

Some Thoughts...

Denzel Washington and Jake Gyllenhaal

Something different from me on a Monday.

I notice that over the weekend the New York Post published a well-timed article about how out-of-control the cost of Broadway tickets has gotten, with Othello, starring Denzel Washington and Jake Gyllenhaal, breaking new records, even though the show is only in previews. Per the Post, you have to pay an extraordinary $900 to sit as far back as Row M. And the show hasn’t even officially opened!

So, I saw Othello last week. I booked a while ago, so maybe that’s why I did not pay anything like $900 apiece for my tickets (which were actually phenomenal - in Row B). But I did pay a lot more - by a margin of $300 or so - than the other shows I’ve also forked out for recently, which include: King Lear; The Nutcracker; Aida; Swan Lake; Redwood (a big mistake, as I wrote here), Glengarry Glen Ross; Good Night and Good Luck; The Portrait of Dorian Gray - and because I trust the impeccable taste and recommendations of the editor of Town and Country, Stellene Volandes in her new newsletter: Buena Vista Social Club.

So, was Othello worth the very, very big bucks?

Well, some context before I give you my thoughts.

Obviously, I am not an official critic or it wouldn’t be kosher for me to tell you what I think based on a preview. (The “official” theater critics aren’t supposed to write the reviews before the Opening Night, which is March 23, because that’s when they get free tickets to see it and the show is deemed now “set” for the rest of its run. But given the astronomical cost of a “preview” ticket, and the fact that the show only runs through June - I think the notion that a person shouldn’t write about it now is absurd).

Also, I have seen a lot of Shakespeare in my time.

That’s because I majored in English Literature at Cambridge University in the UK where we were lucky enough to spend an entire semester studying only Shakespeare. All of my English lit class dabbled in the theater, some rather more deeply than yours truly whose only memorable turn on stage was in The Importance of Being Earnest as the slightly snotty Gwendolen Fairfax (a role that some of the wags said was pitch perfect for me because it didn’t require any actual acting).

Frances O’Connor as Gwendolen Fairfax, the role I played, in The Importance of Being Earnest

Even so, my time at Cambridge ingrained in me a love of theater and the performing arts. I was lucky enough to be surrounded at the time by a deep bench of serious talent who now comprise a Who’s Who of Big Names in Drama and Directing. My tutorial partner was Oscar winner, Rachel Weisz. Others in my class: Sacha Baron Cohen; Ol Parker (the writer and director of Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again!); Jez Butterworth (Tony Award Winner and, most recently the script writer of The Agent on Amazon Prime starring Michael Fassbender); David Farr (who wrote Hanna, adapted John le Carre’s The Night Manager for TV, and is associate director of the Royal Shakespeare Company)….and a host of others. So, you get the point…suffice it to say, yes, we had the kind of college experience many people fantasize about. We immersed ourself in the five ps: poetry, plays, politics, “practical criticism” and partying…and we haven’t really stopped since.

Rachel Weisz, my tutorial partner at Cambridge University

So, in my not entirely ignorant opinion, is this Othello worth it?

If you don’t see much Shakespeare: then, No.

And that’s got nothing to do with this performance. It’s because Othello is a very tricky tragedy to stage. The idea - spoiler alert! - that in the space of a performance, Othello, a black war hero with a new young white bride, Desdemona, is gulled into believing she’s unfaithful to him by little more than the manipulative whispers of his sociopath “ensign” or aide, Iago, to the point where he winds up killing her - and then, when he’s discovered he’s gotten it all wrong - himself…is, well, tricky.

By comparison, the premise of the other three “big” Shakespeare tragedies are easier: Hamlet is all about the protagonist’s indecision, a quality he has from start to finish; King Lear is the journey of an old man’s failing judgment turning into madness; and Macbeth takes us into the bloody, moral abyss wrought by untempered ambition. Othello is meant to be a psychological portrait of jealousy, “the green-eyed monster”, but the flimsy first-hand evidence - as in none - based on which our hero so quickly falls into a blind murderous passion is problematic. (And, because of this, on the night I saw it, there were a few laughs in the audience after the heroine has been strangled in her bed and Othello comes to realize that, to put it mildly, he’s overreacted).

Kenneth Branagh’s King Lear, the night I saw it in New York

Regardless: for me this was the best Othello I’ve ever seen, because:

1. Denzel Washington, now 70, is completely plausible as not just a war hero - but an old war hero, a factor most productions overlook in their casting, even though it’s there in Shakespeare’s writing. Desdemona’s father is told graphically at the start: “An old black ram is tupping your white ewe.” Thus, with Washington’s Othello, the audience easily feels that though he is experienced in battle, and military command, yet he is thrown completely off kilter by the wholly unfamiliar lack-of-control rendered by his intense passion for his young bride (a fabulous 28-year-old Molly Osborne). Washington plays the role with such taut under-statement, such palpable lack of self-awareness, that it doesn’t take much for the audience to feel the tension within him simmer and slowly come to a boil with Iago’s prodding. It’s magnificent.

2. Jake Gyllenhaal. For my money, Iago is the hardest role in Shakespeare. Because he’s a sociopath, possessed of what the Romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge described as a “motiveless malignancy.” For hundreds of years critics have picked apart his lines to try to figure out the why behind his “hatred’ and his horrendous manipulations. Sure, he casually throws out a couple of suggestions: that he suspects Othello may have slept with his wife, Emilia (a mesmerizing Kimber Elayne Sprawl) and that he’s been passed over for promotion and the role he wanted has gone to another soldier, Cassio (a charismatic Andrew Burnap) but there’s no evidence suggesting any of this is real - or, even, that he really believes it.

   But from the moment Jake Gyllenhaal steps on stage, cigarette in hand, head shaved, vacant, sleep-deprived eyes, you feel, with a chill, the absence of empathy and the presence of axiomatic evil. His Iago doesn’t try to explain anything. That would imply he cared. And this Iago does not care.

   I will be shocked if Gyllenhaal doesn’t win a Tony.

The supporting cast is also stellar, and the production, set some time in the near future, works very well.

So, I can’t tell you how to spend your money. And the New York Post is right. This is a heck of a lot of money.

Also, based on history, the New York Times theater critic, who thought Redwood was fantastic, will completely disagree with me.

But, given that I paid a lot of money to go, and I’ve bothered to write this review…you can probably tell: I’ve thought hard about this! So, if you do pay to go to see it, do message me (click the link below) and let me know what YOU think.

And, if any of you are interested, I will also let you know my thoughts on Glengarry Glen Ross, Good Night and Good Luck, Dorian Gray, and Buena Vista Social Club when I see them in the near future.

I also notice that Substack doesn’t appear to have a theater/movie/performing arts review section and I think it’s time to create a space here for that. For instance, I just watched the new Robert de Niro series on Netflix, Zero Day. I thought it was great! And also, I am LOVING The White Lotus, Season Three.

Equally, I have watched fifteen seconds of the trailer of the Meghan Markle’s new Netflix “lifestyle” series, With Love, Meghan - and that’s enough narcissistic-personality-disorder-watching for me. (And, I say this as someone who might otherwise be interested in the subject matter. No one has ever mistaken me for a domestic goddess, but I’ve been teaching myself how to cook this winter - precisely because I don’t have to. My sons are in college, so now the only person requiring culinary perfection from me - is me! It’s a game-changing perspective.)

And when it comes to the Oscar contenders: I HATED The Brutalist. And I LOVED Anora.

But what do you think? Let me know!

Let this be a beginning!