The article critiques Kenny Leon's production of Othello, describing it as lifeless and lacking clarity or purpose, despite high ticket sales driven by celebrities like Denzel Washington and Jake Gyllenhaal. The author questions the artistic integrity of a show that seems disinterested in its own message, invoking Coleridge's idea of aimless malignity to draw a parallel to the production's lack of a coherent motive. The overall impression is one of baffling mediocrity overshadowing the play's inherent power and historical significance.
Kenny Leon's passionless new production is about as far from that overlap as it's possible to get. Audience and ensemble alike are lost in a hinterland so disconcertingly sleepy and beige that it's hard to summon anything as visceral as fury.
But what of the motive-hunting of a motiveless production? Leon's Othello has no opinion, no reason for being beyond the movie stars at its center. It barely even has a pulse.
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