Offhand and daring, rat-like Rylance offers Shakespeare exposed
Othello Shakespeare’s Globe ★★★★★
Sir Mark Rylance is back on home turf. Or perhaps that should be home timber. For the first time since the formidable pairing of his gliding, ethereal Olivia in
Twelfth Night and his impish-dastardly Richard III in 2012 (before Wolf Hall put him on another level of household recognition) he’s treading the mainstage boards at his alma mater, treating us to Shakespeare and back-stabbing, conniving Iago.
This is in its own way a casting coup (artistic regimes come and go here, but Sir Mark – the first artistic director to throw open the Wooden O’s doors in the late Nineties – almost seems imbued with the soul of the place).
But in addition, director Claire van Kampen (his wife, composer and also the playwright who gave him yet another Globe hit, Farinelli and the
King) has secured the services of Andre Holland for the lead. Holland brings in his own army of admirers, having played a pivotal role in the runaway Oscar-winning film Moonlight.
It’s a theatrical marriage that fits the treacherous hell of Shakespeare’s conception to near perfection. By his own admission Holland, from Alabama, is venturing onto terra incognita; he has stayed away from the role in the past, retains his American accent and makes his presence felt through an old-world solemnity of movement, poise and gracefulness.
By contrast, Rylance declares from the moment he first strides quickly on, in red beret, turquoise tunic and furtive, restless air, that he knows every inch of this exposed stage.
These two players’ marked, diverging relation to the space, then, serves to emphasise the difference between the characters beyond the standard racial distinctions.
Rylance is a great Shakespearean actor because he refuses to be the great Shakespearean actor. His manner is often daringly offhand, he falters across lines, at times plays the fool. He weaponises that customary gentleness of his so that Iago isn’t an overt schemer, even in his soliloquies; his motivation is a mystery even to himself.
The downside is a sense of compounded understatement – which threatens to make the second-half underpowered; sap the malignancy.
Just as Holland abstains from overt frothing jealousy, so Rylance – dabbing away with a handkerchief at his brow, choirboy meek – keeps his emotions tightly bottled. Yet helped by sensational performances from the women – Jessica Warbeck’s honest, plaintive Desdemona, Sheila Atim’s towering, truth-filled Emilia – the horror of what unfolds in the bedchamber hits duly home.
And Rylance’s Iago, as if by magic, dwindles before us into a pathetic, rat-like creature – essence of evil’s banality.
Until Oct 13. Tickets: 020 7401 9919; shakespearesglobe.com