Othello’s on Trial in Shakespeare Sequel

You might have thought Shakespeare did an adequate job wrapping up his story lines, but here in Los Angeles, a property with the enduring box office of “Othello” is always fair game for a sequel. Taking up his quill to continue the Moor’s tragic saga in “The Trial of Othello” at Theatre West is veteran producer-writer Sherwood Schwartz, creator of “Gilligan’s Island” and “The Brady Bunch.”

Schwartz is no stranger to Shakespeare--the musical version of “Hamlet” performed by Gilligan and his fellow castaways still ranks as one of my all-time favorite interpretations. Yet in this first dramatic effort, Schwartz’s vaulting ambition may have o’er leapt his comic metier.

As the title suggests, we find Othello (Hawthorne James) under indictment for the murder of Desdemona (Lynne Pickett). It has taken a few centuries to bring this case to trial in a thoroughly modern courtroom--but that’s the legal system for you. His apparent suicide a mere flesh wound, Othello is still despondent, and after endless testimony rehashing events already in evidence from Episode 1, so was I. Yet Othello’s lanky, Jimmy Stewart-esque defense attorney (Kevin Symons) is determined to prove his client’s innocence with the cogent analogy that the real killer is not the gun but the hand that fires it.

That trigger-happy manipulator is, of course, the snarling Iago (David Brandt), currently serving a life sentence for the murder of his own wife. Yet Iago is curiously reluctant to give self-incriminating testimony, requiring a tension buildup through most of the play before he’s finally goaded into revealing the truth.

Much as I hate to reveal the play’s only original plot point, the legions of Othello fans unwilling to turn off their cell phones for a couple of hours should know that Iago’s motives finally come out, outlandish though they may be.

And there you have it--endless debate finally laid to rest, and delivered with straight faces all around in Bob Delegall’s staging. There’s a promising comic one-act lurking in the ponderous folds of this oddball premise--perhaps it can find a more successful afterlife in a future “Gilligan’s Island” reprise.

* “The Trial of Othello,” Theatre West, 3333 Cahuenga Blvd. West, Los Angeles.

Fridays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 3 p.m. Ends Aug. 13. $15. (323) 851-7977. Running time: 1 hour, 55 minutes.