A GREEN-EYED RAP ROMP ADDS MOOR TO THE MIX
Before Othello: The Remix it was only Shakespeare’s comedies that received the Q brothers’ trademark, rap-happy revision—Funk It Up About Nothin’ and The Bomb-itty of Errors. Who would have thought a tragedy could take this “ad-rap-tation”?
It can. Boldly applying a hip (as in hop) transformation to Shakespeare domestic tragedy, this much-acclaimed venture premiered at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, part of the 2012 London Cultural Olympiad, and has played Edinburgh’s Fringe Festival and in Australia, South Korea, Poland, and Germany. (Well, rap like Shakespeare is universal.) In this delirious delight, developed with Chicago Shakespeare Theater’s creative producer Rick Boynton, five players take only 85 minutes (and, this time, no energy-depleting intermission) to deliver a freely funky, hip-hopped remake, complete with boom-box beat and breakout poetry, of how the Moor’s “green-eyed monster” of jealousy, inspired by his malevolent aide Iago, makes him kill Desdemona, the love of his life and, now, the excuse for his death.
The DJ’s pulsating beat is so irresistible you could believe the waves on Lake Michigan surrounding the theater have taken up the rhythms. In 2016 there’s a new urgency to this welcome revival: It launches Chicago’s city-wide celebration of the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death on April 23. Once again, the Q brothers, GQ and JQ (what happened to IQ?), update but never trivialize the master’s universal grasp of characters in conflict. (It would take seven hearings to catch all the show’s cultural references, one reason that it will never outlast its source.)
In this richly “remixed” and equally faithful treatment, Othello (Postell Pringle, louder and larger than life) is a self-made rapper on the verge of recording contracts and tons of bling. His partner in music and love is the unseen Desdemona (a good choice as seeing her suffering would be a definite downer). She’s both Othello’s muse and a source of guilt and insecurity over how he took her from her snobbish and rap-condemning father and over how strong their sudden marriage will prove.
Dressed in the crew’s gray jump-suits and presenting rapid-fire wig and prop changes, the prime homies of Othello’s entourage are smooth-toned Cassio (Jackson Doran), nerdy video gamester and lighting designer Rodrigo (JQ), and, of course, the master manipulator of them all—Iago (GQ who also plays the gulled player Brabantio). This grim trickster is as jealous of Cassio as he intends Othello to be of Desdemona—and he’s vengeful when the emerging rapper’s beats are favored over his own. (JQ also plays Blanca, a Latin spitfire with a pink fright wig, and Loco Vito, a record producer with a marketing scheme for every moment.)
Like a poetry slam on steroids, the rest of the story dogs the original like a bloodhound, except that here it’s a gold necklace, rather than a handkerchief, that false convinces Iago of his lady’s treachery. A diabolical puppetmaster, Iago devilishly engineers Cassio’s disgrace, lacing his drinks to make him misbehave at an album release party, then tricks Rodrigo, from whom he’s gamed a ton of swag, into wounding Cassio (which means Iago must kill him to quiet the voluble geek). In the end Iago’s suspicious and courageous wife Emilia (Doran wearing a mop of a wig and a too-tiny apron) exposes Iago’s dirty designs. But not before Othello erupts in a pre-homicidal rant that drives him to destroy the imagined Desdemona.
If iambic pentameter seemed the natural cadence for Shakespeare’s blank verse, rap rhythms take the pulse of our times. Marvels of supple, split-second timing and gangbanging hubris, the bouncing, bubbly dialogue is as infectious as repetitious. The result is an intricately coordinated collaboration of music-video choreography, pulsating beat backdrop by disk-jockey Clayton Stamper, Jesse Klug’s wizard lighting design (now projected by Greg Hofmann), James Savage’s inexhaustible sound design, Melissa Veal’s tell-all make-up, and Scott Davis’ ingenious props and costumes.
Nothing’s lost in this deft translation or delirious presentation. Othello stays serious where it should, notably as the inevitable catastrophe closes in: Even where it didn’t in the original, it strikes true, as in a hilarious, driving rouser by the “women” (“It’s a Man’s World”) about why men shouldn’t rule the world. Happily and intentionally, the storyline stays too strong enough to succumb to the style. Indeed the insistent percussive dynamism of the script propels the unstoppable tragedy as much as any incidents. However long the run, this “remix” can never run long enough.
photos by Michael Brosilow
Othello: The Remix 2016
Upstairs at Chicago Shakespeare Theater
800 E. Grand Avenue on Navy Pier
ends on May 8, 2016
for tickets, call 312.595.5600 or visit Chicago Shakes
for more Chicago shows, visit Theatre in Chicago