SHAKESPEARE SEASON

Evening Post, Volume CII, Issue 60, 8 September 1921, Page 3

SHAKESPEARE SEASON

-"OTHELLO,"

Quito, contrary to all current White Australian notions, Desdemona, a fair Venetian, loved a Moor, and thereby arose the dread and drear tragedy of Shakespeare's "Othello." The affection, if voluntary and unworked by. drug or magic, was so seeming strange, that Desdemona's bitter father was moved to exclaim: A maiden never bold; Of spirit so still and quiet that her motion Blushed at herself; and she—in spite of • nature Of years, of country, credit, everything— To fall in love with what 3he feared to look on! Othello, confronting the father (Brabantio) before the Duke of Venice and his State Council, in disavowal of the imputed use of unfair influences, suggested that-Desdemona loved first of all the soldier and adventurer in him, from which by easy transition she' loved himself, his colour notwithstanding. To which the soured parent Brabantio no I longer dissents, but. fires the parting shot: ' . ■ y Look to her, Moor; have a quick eye to see: She has deceived her father, and maj thee. j Othello: My life upon her faith! How not her. faith, but his, was broken down is told in the long story of lagoV subtle mischief-making, his wife's lache (atoned for), and Cassio's drunkennpss. Brabantio planted a seed that others watered, and from that jealous growth sprang the murder of Desdemona by Othello and sundry other crimes. As the soldierly Moor, Mr. Allan Wilkie bore himself last ' evening with becoming bravery. Perhaps it is not possible to have an Othello divorced from sound and fury, and yet Othello; but sometimes one longs for a quieter reading of the more violent scenes, so heavily laden with the gusts of passion. The feminine ■ roles Jound Miss Hunter-Watts and Miss Lorna Forbes associated as Deademona and Emilia (lagos wife)—an association so different from that which binds them as Rosalind and Celia. Both ladies played with credit, as did Miss Vera St. John in the limited part of Bianca. Villainous, hypocritical, , double-dealing lago, whose heart is of the colour of Othello's skin, found in Mr. Robert Purdie a scrupulously careful interpreter, and one of whom it is fair to say that he has mastered the. spirit as well as the technique of thig repulsive creation. Mr. William Lockhart's Brabantino was a finished performance; and hardly less successful were Mr, Leslie Manners as Cassio and Mr. J. Roy« Workman as Roderigo. Generally speaking, the Wilkie company is a close-to-_ Shakespeare combination; its stage equipment and methods are designed to interpret the bar 3 and not to improve him; which is as it should be. Last night at the Grand Opera House a well-served audience paid appreciative tribute. To-night is "Twelfth Night."