The spring theater season this year is enticingly rich, both on Broadway and off. But I suspect it will not bring a Shakespeare production to equal the gripping Othello now blazing across the stage of the Duke on 42nd Street Theater, courtesy of Theater for a New Audience. I can say this partly because Shakespeare has unfortunately become a relative rarity on major New York stages, but primarily because this production is so terrific.

Katie Orlinsky for The New York Times

John Douglas Thompson as the title character and Juliet Rylance as Desdemona in "Othello" at the Duke on 42nd Street Theater. More Photos »

 

 

Katie Orlinsky for The New York Times

Ned Eisenberg as Iago, and Kate Forbes as Emilia, his wife.

No, there are no marquee names British, American or anything else to entice the verse-averse or make the show a necessary ticket for ****tail party chatter. Shakespeare is the star here, but he is handled with the kind of artistry we always hope for and rarely find. This is among the most sensitively directed, eloquently designed and impeccably acted productions of a Shakespeare tragedy that the city has seen in years.

The director, Arin Arbus, might just be a star in the making, or to put it less glibly and more realistically a potentially important artist. The associate artistic director of Theater for a New Audience, she makes an extraordinary Off Broadway debut with this production.

Do not go looking for a ham-fisted personal signature or bold innovation. Ms. Arbus allows this most taut and tense of Shakespeares tragedies to weave its inexorable spell simply by letting the language breathe and the drama unfold at a quietly accelerating rhythm. And by encouraging her actors to engage with one another on a level so natural and yet so intense that the audience cannot help being made to feel the powerful, painful weight of the plays beauty.

She gets out of Shakespeares way, in other words, but this is only the reward of much intelligent care and hard work. You get the sense that each moment in the play has been thought through, line by line and even step by step, with the result that every scene achieves its purpose with a trenchant simplicity. I cant remember any other Shakespeare production that inspired my admiration even for the way the actors are arrayed on a simple thrust stage, creating compositions of rich emotional eloquence. It helps that her design team Peter Ksander (sets), Miranda Hoffman (costumes) and particularly Marcus Doshi (lighting) all contribute first-rate, understated work in tune with Ms. Arbuss rigorously simple aesthetic.

To cite just one small example, I love the way Ms. Arbus stages the crucial scene in which Iago begins to chip away at the foundations of Othellos love for Desdemona. They are placed at opposite ends of a long table, and distracted by busywork, as Iago (Ned Eisenberg) casually begins letting little suggestions of doubt and suspicion drop from his tongue, almost as if unconsciously.
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(end of snippet -- full article at nyt.com)