Out of seeing Othello with Lucian Msamati as Iago. Fucking brilliant. He plays the role in a way I’ve never seen, a man heartbroken by betrayal from Othello, whose revenge is not one of cynical ambition or even psychopathic mischief, but of deep-centred, soul-destroying passion and need. He infuses his performance with ambiguity as to whether Iago has always been a villain, whether his love for the Moor was true at one time but now curdled, and why, and even imbuing it with queer subtext. His plan for revenge, far from being masterful, feels like a self-destructive suicide run doomed to end in tragedy for himself as well as everyone else. Just fantastic, go see it!
