Othello’s nemesis has come in many guises, but the new spin in this production is that three actors play the arch-schemer Iago. Where he traditionally confides his quiet hate for Othello with the audience while posing as an honest ally and confidant, here those soliloquies are turned into conversations between the split self.
In theory, the polyphony should make his evil better understood and serve as a close study of Shakespearean jealousy. But all three Iagos (Michael C Fox, Orlando James and Jeremy Neumark Jones) are super-villains with no distinguishing features between them. They whisper, connive and rollick, sometimes behaving like lads in a pub (“drink drink drink” the trio chant when getting Cassio into the brawl that loses him his precious reputation).
