An Aimless OTHELLO — Review

The uber-prolific Kenny Leon has somewhat perfected his directorial strategy of casting extremely well then getting out of the way of his talented performers, trusting them to deliver the work cleanly, and largely on their own. If a bit of nuance goes unexplored here, or some text feels hurried there, he typically pulls it off on the strength of the material. It worked with a rollicking comedy like Purlie Victorious, it worked with an emotional meditation like Our Town. The approach does not work with Othello, his third Broadway show this season, which stumbles aimlessly and fruitlessly for nearly three hours.

Shakespeare’s works will outlive us all, but need a reason to be staged, a focus on one of the many thematic strands each contains, and through which they remain immortal. Though Leon’s two previous Shakespearean outings, both at the Delacorte, had specific takes on character and setting, there is nothing powering his Othello, leaving its two blockbuster leads, Denzel Washington and Jake Gyllenhaal, stranded.

Gyllenhaal wrangles emotion out of his Iago, if he’s not completely at home with the Bard’s language. Washington, in a statement as baffling to write as the performance was to witness, seems to have little hold on crafting his character. This Othello does not carry the triumphant stateliness of an army general victorious over general circumstance and pointed racism, but rather the affable nature of an easy mark. When the scheming Iago suggests his new wife Desdemona (Molly Osborne) might be untrue, he falls for it immediately, sapping the bonafide thriller of any sense of tragedy. Andrew Burnap, meanwhile, is rather impressive as Cassio, with Anthony Michael Lopez and Kimber Elayne Sprawl also making the most of their Roderigo and Emilia.

It would be ludicrous to imply Washington and Gyllenhaal are incapable of turning in momentous, gorgeously attuned performances, so one searches for a directorial hand that emerges in other, bizarre ways. The set, by Derek McLane, whose structural minimalism is well-suited to the modern-dress costumes (by Dede Ayite), is simply not pleasant to look at, with columns sophomorically sponge-painted to suggest age. And Justin Ellington’s sound design vacillates clunkily between melodramatic, Disney-sounding strings and modern trap beats.

An introductory projection places the action in “the near future,” apparently one where the United States has invaded the story’s Venice, given the conflicting military and police patches worn onstage. This scene-setting appears following the magic trick involving Desdemona’s handkerchief which opens the show. Long before the accessory figures into Iago’s plot, it hangs mid-air against a blank stage before the performance begins. As it is invisibly whisked into the flies, the magic, drama, and knowing purpose that the gesture promises disappears almost as immediately.

Othello is in performance through June 8, 2025 at the Barrymore Theatre on West 47th Street in New York City. For tickets and more information, visit here.