Outdoor Othello drifts into downtown St. Catharines
Gather round, Shakespeare is back in town.
Toronto touring company Driftwood Theatre makes its regular summer visit to downtown St. Catharines July 21 with a production of Othello. And while the tragedy may be familiar, the performing space is new — the Mann Raceway Plaza behind the FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre.
In previous years the versatile company has performed under the stars at Montebello Park, but artistic director Jeremy Smith was intrigued by the lay-out of the new venue, which was first used for this year’s In the Soil arts festival.
The new St. Catharines space is part of Driftwood’s mandate this summer to find new, unique areas to perform instead of on a raised stage. The plaza is between the Performing Arts Centre and the Marilyn I. Walker campus, with the audience slightly above the performers.
“It presented a few really interesting changes from Montebello Park, which is a beautiful park, but it’s very flat,” says Smith.
“We’ve taken the opportunity to revisit the aesthetic of Driftwood. What we’ve planned is to better incorporate the environment in which we’re performing, so you end up with a site-specific experience, making every single show a little different.”
The company will be doing Othello for just the second time in its 23-year history, but in a radically different version. It’s set against the backdrop of Cyprus in 1974, where Canadian soldiers helped repel Turkish forces as part of the United Nations Peacekeeping Force.
“It very closely mirrored events in Shakespeare’s play,” says Smith. “Othello is sent to Cyprus to protect the island from invasion. It just became a really interesting parallel.”
As always, audiences pay what they can, with a suggested donation of $20.
The show stars Jordin Hall as Othello, Fiona Sauder as his wife Desdemona, and Christopher Darroch as the scheming Iago. It will travel to 27 communities across Ontario, starting July 14 in Hamilton.
For Driftwood, it’s back to Shakespeare’s heavy stuff after last year’s lighthearted The Taming of the Shrew.
“I certainly believe, in some ways, there’s a scale and a grandeur with Shakespeare’s tragedies that agrees with the outdoors,” says Smith. “Some of his comedies do as well, but his tragedies just seem to reach a little higher.
“We get a lot of (feedback) from the audience who say they like to laugh, that say they like the comedies, but they really respond to the tragedies.” jlaw@postmedia.com