On a cool fall evening, I saw the last play in CalShakes season, a very unconventional production of Othello. This was the first play directed by Eric Ting, the new Artistic Director, and probably foreshadows the nature of things to come.
The basic setting was that this was the play as given by actors sitting on a stage doing a run-through. An extremely minimalist dark grey stage with chairs in a circle, and almost all the actors were on stage during the entire play, dressed in street clothes, just sitting down when they weren’t in a scene. It also featured interludes where someone would break character and make some comments in a microphone at the corner of the stage, sometimes a politically incorrect joke, I guess to be provocative. The basic staging became OK if you think it gave you the chance to use your imagination even more than usual … and the acting was solid. But the interludes and other theatrical devices were just kind of weird and broke the flow of the drama. The most unusual thing was right before the last moments of the play, they stopped, went into a 10 min audience question and answer session and discussion of what people thought about the production; that was quite different. 
Certainly a thought/discussion provoking production. I’m not sure it improved the story telling or the play, and it doesn’t really leave me super stoked to see next season … but we’ll see how it goes. The Winters’ joined me (Andy seemed to really like it), as well as Jeff and Heather (who bailed at the audience participation session). All-in-all a descent way to end a good season of theater.
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