Othello v Titus

Having spent the previous night at Bell's Dream I was looking forward to an evening of contrast with Shakespearience's Othello v Titus.

I'll confess it wasn't entirely without some trepidation. While I shared much of Robert Cook's enthusiasm for Gibson Nolte's performance in the recent Macbeth, I'd wished someone had taken a nail gun to his somewhat undisciplined interpretation of Macduff and stapled his feet to the floor!

However, I had seen Gibson's Winters' Tale at Kalamunda last year and I was confident that, as a director, he had a firm grasp of the bard and I was looking forward to seeing how he and his fellow director Claire Hooper tackled these condensed versions.

It's difficult not to draw comparisons between the original sources and Kaiser's shorter versions. Shakespeare's Othello and Titus Andronicus they are not. That said, the stripped down texts stand perfectly well in their own right and succeeded admirably in performance.

The contrast with Bell Shakespeare was at once apparent in the almost complete lack of setting and the very simple costuming - not to mention the size of the venue. For all this, the company filled the space with inventive performances that invited the audience to share their journey.

Each play is performed by a cast of three and thankfully, with skillful editing, each actor plays at most only three parts. Shifts in characterisation together with single items of costume or rearrangments of hair neatly distinguished one role from another.

The plays move quickly. The performances are dynamic and the energy never flagged. Titus is as obscenely funny as Othello is tension packed. The invention and passion held the small Blue Room crowd firmly in its thrall.

Some more work on vocal technique might have assisted to carry the otherwise excellent performances of Booth and Keen, but it was a delight to see the development of Toby Malone as a performer. If occasionally physically understated his almost melodramatic vocal range was admirably suited to the roles. Rebecca Pithers performance was the highlight for me with extraordinary assurance, sensitivity and vocal clarity.

And I have to ask... Rebecca is that you? I thought you looked very familiar, but I didn't read the programme until i went for coffee after the show. Can it be that i really directed you when you were ten years old???

Cheers
Grant