THEATER : Grove Shakespeare Festival Updating ‘Othello’--but Maybe Not Enough

Does anybody ever set Shakespearean productions in their own time? Not at the Grove Shakespeare Festival, to judge from the current season.

First came “Much Ado About Nothing,” which Jules Aaron updated to the late 1930s and set in Fascist Italy. Then there was “As You Like It,” which Tom Bradac set in turn-of-the-century America.

Now comes an updated version of “Othello,” which David Herman (no relation to this writer) has decided to place during post-Napoleonic times. The production begins a 3 1/2-week run Thursday at the outdoor Festival Amphitheatre.

Is there a point to all of this? Some creative purpose shared by these directors? Or are they simply trying to throw their weight around and assert their authority at Shakespeare’s expense?

The basic answer is that each of them has sought a user-friendly metaphor, in effect, to help clarify the meaning of the play--not because it was so abstruse but simply to bring it closer to a contemporary audience.

In “Much Ado,” Aaron wanted to emphasize the pervasive element of an eavesdropping society rife with the manipulation of private lives. The updated setting worked chiefly because it poked highly theatrical fun at the Italian Fascists in charge. Had they been German Nazis, though, it’s doubtful audiences would have laughed.

In “As You Like It,” Bradac wanted to reinforce the poignancy of its pastoral theme by suggesting an American era when industrial growth and city values seriously began to encroach on rural life. While the idea for the update made sense, it never seemed relevant to the actual production beyond a few minor details. In fact, the turn-of-the-century spin was invisible except for the costumes.

Yet Bradac’s production offered considerable charm, proof perhaps that all “As You Like It” really needs to succeed is skillful negotiation of its languorous plot by actors able to deliver some of the most appealing speeches in the Shakespeare canon.

Herman says his purpose in updating “Othello” to post-Napoleonic times is to underscore its military atmosphere. The tragic hero of the play, after all, is a valiant army general sent by the Duke of Venice to defend Cyprus against a Turkish invasion.

Herman does not dispute for a moment that, despite Othello’s mission, the play is essentially a tale of domestic woe hardly concerned with matters of state, military or otherwise, unlike “Hamlet,” “King Lear” or “Macbeth.”

He points out that “Othello” strictly chronicles the swift downfall of a proud, magnanimous man whose doom is sealed when false stories impugning the faithfulness of his new bride, Desdemona, infect him with an uncharacteristic jealousy.

Nevertheless, Herman maintains, it is crucial to establish the texture of life in an isolated military outpost, even if he achieves it merely in visual terms with recognizable uniforms of the 19th-Century rather than the less familiar doublet and hose of 400 years ago.

He contends that an easily appreciated garrison atmosphere will help to convey how Othello could be taken in by sexual gossip, culminating in Desdemona’s murder and his suicide. Moreover, he says the military metaphor will help to set in context the bitterness of Iago, a career soldier who seeks Othello’s ruin because he has been passed over for promotion in favor of the less-experienced but higher-born Cassio.

Given Herman’s thinking--and with American troops now establishing desert fortifications in Saudi Arabia--would it have been more interesting to set “Othello” there? Such a contemporary mise en scene might offer an even greater resonance than the one Herman anticipates. Though not exact, some of the parallels to the Persian Gulf crisis would be striking.

Consider: While the Venetians have hired Othello to defend their interests because of his military prowess, they can’t help regarding him with a certain distaste as an interloper. So, too, the Saudis, who have invited U.S. troops to defend their interests (and ours), but still regard their American protectors as unsavory intruders.

Consider: Othello is black, a fact noted more than once by labeling him with an Elizabethan epithet. Indeed, Iago calls him “the Moor” as an explicit reminder to other Venetians that Othello is neither white nor one of them. It might be pointed out--if only for the sake of a coincidence too good to pass up and not with any imputation of Saudi racism--that America’s top general, Colin Powell, is also black.

Since timing means everything in the theater, the Persian Gulf crisis must have come too late in rehearsals for Herman to exploit as a concept.

Anyway, he has no doubt that without any additional help “Othello” expresses an aspect of social insularity in Shakespeare’s time that is prevalent in England to this day and in many other societies. “Outsiders are fine, providing they fulfill a function and you have a need for them,” the British-born director says. “But they’re not really one of you.”

Paradoxically, Othello is seen, most notably by Desdemona and Cassio, as head and shoulders above the common run of men. He is the instance of “a perfect soul,” as Cassio says. Herman concurs: “Although he is a warrior, he is an incredible human being who has balanced his physical, philosophical, mental, poetical and artistic skills. He is almost a kind of Greek ideal, the complete man.”

Why then is this paragon so myopic when it comes to Iago’s vengeful machinations? Is it, as Shakespearean scholars have always explained, that he hasn’t had much experience of the world off the battlefield? Presumably, a post-Napoleonic “Othello” will shed new light.

The Grove Shakespeare Festival production of “Othello” begins Thursday and will run through Sept. 22 at the Festival Amphitheatre, 12852 Main St., Garden Grove. Performances are Thursdays to Sundays at 8:30 p.m. Tickets: $16 to $23. Information: (714) 636-7213.