Great Love, Gone Wrong

By: Marco Cattafesta

2/28/09

42nd STR. The new Broadway who ever thought that was going to happen? Well its getting there. From the great shows like Jason and the arognaghts at the new victory theaters to the new show Othello. This magnificent play directed by Arin Arbus and with major support from theater for new audience has blown away many people including The New York Times who wrote a whole article about how fantastic it was. The tragic play was written by William Shakespeare. All of the actors had no marquee names and were almost anonymous. I personally strongly recommend that other play directors do the same as Arin Arbus. Othello takes place in Venice, Italy and Cyprus, Turkey. The conflict of the story is Iago a mischievous man is enraged because, he was 3rd place in the army and Othello was the general, in battle the 2nd place man dies. When this happens Iago thinks ok now I will be 2nd place man next to Othello in the army, but instead Othello finds an man who was just a mere soldier and puts him as 2nd place man. This enrages Iago and he seeks revenge. The way he got his revenge is by slowly spoon feeding doubt about Desdimonias faithfulness to Othello. This kills Othellos soul and slowly but surely Othello goes mad. I myself loved the scene in the play the most where the fool Rodrigo tries to kill Casio because Iago said that if you kill Casio then you can win the love of Desdemona. In this scene Rodrigo is hiding behind the stage waiting for Casio to come by, and when he does Rodrigo jumps out at Casio, but before Rodrigo can do anything Casio notices and cracks Rodrigos back takes his sword and cuts him in the neck. While this is happening Iago cuts Casios leg in two and kills Rodrigo. That was my favorite scene from the play. I would recommend this play to someone who can understand old English pretty well. Another student might like this play because of all the action in it. For example many times in the play there are big sword fights but mainly with Casio in

them. Another reason another student might like this play is because of what it teaches you a lot about life and how not everybody is honest even if they should be. My rating for this play would be 4 and a half stars because some parts of the play were over acted and just too much, But all in all it was very good. I do have one more piece of advice for anyone going to see the play sit in the back row because the actors scream really loud and spit a lot.