Streamlined ‘Othello’ comes alive

“O my soul’s joy,” Othello exclaimed. A military campaign had separated the Moorish mercenary, a commander of Venetian forces, from his radiant young bride, and as he caught sight of her upon his return, he fell in love all over again. She rushed to him and wrapped herself in his arms. He beamed with happiness.

Then, from the margins of the scene, came a sneering “Aww” that deflated the moment. It was issued by Iago, an ensign passed over for promotion and now determined to ruin Othello. The audience tittered. Iago’s dry wit and fierce intelligence had earned its grudging admiration, but this new evidence of his snarkiness was almost enough to earn him a melodrama villain’s hisses.

Four hundred years melted away Thursday night, as Shakespeare’s tragedy seized an audience at Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts with as much immediacy as if it were the newest offering at the local multiplex. The production of “Othello” came courtesy of Aquila Theatre Company, on a tour supported by the National Endowment for the Arts’ Shakespeare in American Communities program.

Streamlined and somewhat reshaped by director Robert Richmond, “Othello” -- one of two plays presented on the tour -- came alive with sexiness, humor and action, all of which arose from a deep understanding of the characters’ complexities. In enabling the audience to empathize even with the dastardly Iago, the presentation made Shakespeare’s themes of racism, sexism, jealousy and redemption all the more palpable.

The production was dressed in military gear of the present day, and simple staging techniques proved wonderfully vivid, as when actors dived and tumbled beneath billowing cloth to simulate a military parachute drop.

The story both opened and closed with Othello’s final speech, which, right away, set the central character on his hard road to self-awareness.

And no Lifetime cable channel movie could have done a better job of conveying the brutality at the story’s core. When out of the blue, Othello -- led by Iago to believe that he is being cuckolded -- slapped the face of innocent Desdemona, a collective flinch shot through the audience.

The presentation greatly benefited from Anthony Cochrane’s eerily likable Iago, whose actions became all the more horrifying for the audience’s ability to empathize.

As Desdemona, Kathryn Merry breezed around the stage like a breath of fresh air. She was no mere vision of loveliness, though, as was proved by her fierce, impassioned stand for women’s rights alongside Tracey Mitchell’s Emilia (Iago’s wife, here portrayed as a woman soldier under Othello’s command).

The falsest notes, alas, were sounded by Lloyd Notice as Othello. Possessor of a lush, James Earl Jones-like voice, he delivered his speeches as though in love, above all else, with the sonority of his voice. And that’s not the romance that’s meant to drive this story.

Devoted to the classics, Aquila has roots in Britain as well as the United States and is on the road with actors from both places. Presentations in New York, including a recent “Agamemnon” with Olympia Dukakis, are spreading the company’s name.

Today and Sunday in Cerritos, the company will switch to a presentation of Rudyard Kipling’s “The Man Who Would Be King,” performed by the same actors as in “Othello.”

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Aquila Theatre Company

What: “The Man Who Would Be King”

Where: Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts, 12700 Center Court Drive, Cerritos

When: Today, 8 p.m.; Sunday, 2 p.m.

Ends: Sunday

Price: $20-$45

Contact: (800) 300-4345

or (562) 916-8500