THEATER REVIEWS : An All-Female ‘Othello’ at Odyssey

The Los Angeles Women’s Shakespeare Company, which stages all-female versions of Shakespeare’s classics, is by its very nature iconoclastic. There is an implicit radicalism in the notion of women playing the great male Shakespearean roles. However, there’s nothing polemical about the company’s production of “Othello” at the Odyssey. This is simply good, solid Shakespeare, thoughtfully staged and performed.

From the outset, when the cast assembles to sing “I Am Not What I Am,” it is evident that this “Othello” isn’t a novelty act. There’s not a trace of gimmickry or gimcrackery about it.

Perhaps, for the women of the company, this production is more a subtle revenge, a longstanding vendetta dating to the days of the Globe Theater, when men played all the parts, both male and female, up until the present day, when the surest path to stardom for an attractive young woman is flashing flesh on the silver screen.

The production elements are handsome, particularly Jeanne Reith’s painstaking period costumes. The acting, on the whole, is good. Apparently relieved at their respite from the proliferation of wife and victim roles, the actors who play the male roles capture the essence of masculinity without parody.

Though her performance lacks the rich dimensionality that marks the truly great Othellos, Fran Bennett invests the Moor with an almost mystical dignity that is authoritative. Leigh Curran’s Iago has a sardonic malignity that transcends the inherent limitations of Shakespeare’s stock villain. (One can’t help but imagine Iagos through the centuries asking, “But what’s my real motivation for hating the Moor?”)

Karole Foreman plays Cassio with an affecting boyishness that gibes well with her slight physical stature. Lisa Wolpe’s buffoonishly gullible Roderigo provides welcome comic relief until the bitter end. Emilie Talbot’s nicely astringent Emilia explodes with passionate intensity at the folly wrought upon her beloved lady, Desdemona, and Virginia Ray’s performance as this ultimate wife/victim is touching, never treacly.

Wolpe, who also founded the company, directs tastefully and respectfully. Indeed, there are times when one wishes that Wolpe had been a little more outrageously revisionistic in her approach. However, perhaps the point of this production is not to shock the audience with the offbeat, but rather to press home the universality of Shakespeare’s themes.

So why are men dressed as women funny, and women dressed as men dignified? Let the sociologists ponder the question, while Shakespeare lovers hie themselves posthaste to the Odyssey for an evening of the real thing.

“Othello,” Odyssey Theater, 2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd., Los Angeles. Wednesdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 7 p.m. Ends June 26. $17.50-$21.50. (310) 477-2055. Running time: 3 hours, 5 minutes.