Election Section

The Impact Theatre company, housed in the tiny black basement of La Val’s Pizza and encouraging their audiences to bring “a slice and a pint” downstairs to munch on during their shows, bills itself as offering “Theatre that doesn’t suck.” 

It doesn’t.  

Their usual works are absurd and very funny bubbles. But once every season they seem to like to show off the full range of their skills by presenting a heavy-duty Shakespearean drama. They do it with a straight face, but with remarkable originality. This year, the play is Othello and the short version of this review is that it’s great. Everybody should go to see it. (No kids, though. This is an R-rated version of Shakespeare). 

However, it’s quite possible that Impact’s brash production is going to be best remembered for their impudence in, first, presenting the tragic Moor as a black Lesbian and, second, for the lap dancer who entertains the soldiers in a great bar scene. For this viewer, both changes to the hallowed text make perfect sense. 

We are, after all, in the epicenter of a tide of controversy about same-sex marriages which leaves the similar, but out-dated, uproar about inter-racial marriages far behind. (Look up an old version of the California State Constitution if you think our own state has always been free of such invasive bias). So Impact has simply updated the old controversy regarding racial intermarriage to the current version of the issue. If there is a problem with this idea for the famous tragedy, it lies primarily in the substitution of a woman’s voice for the masculine bellowing one could expect for a number of the lines. 

Same song; second verse.  

As for the lap dancer, Othello, in this production, is set in modern times with the presence of war shadowing the whole story. A bunch of soldiers out on a drunk would probably be quite happy to head for a bar featuring live entertainment. More important, Othello—after all, a play about (presumed) adultery, multiple murders, and suicide—is hardly designed for children’s entertainment.  

A powerful cast turns in a first-rate performance under the imaginative and impressive direction of director Melissa Hillman. She has created mesmerizing scenes with the top-notch work of the supporting as well as the leading characters. 

Skyler Cooper’s physical presence alone would qualify her for the role of Othello. Although not a massive woman, she has the build that you might expect from the top trainer at a gym that is actually her day job. A dedicated actress, she dreams of being the first woman to play the same role on the New York stage.  

Cooper is well paired with Marissa Keltie’s Desdemona. Keltie plays a gentle , intelligent and poised woman whose murder is a real loss. It is a character that can easily be dismissed as being “nothing but the victim,” but Keltie makes the role much more than that.  

It is in the enigmatic Iago, brilliantly played by Casey Jackson, that the real gift of the play may be for those of us who have never quite been able to understand the depth of his villainy. Yes, Othello passed him over for a promotion that he seemingly had every reason to anticipate was a shoo-in. Yes, he very probably is a racist. Yes, he may even have had mixed feelings about his own wife’s role as lady-in-waiting—played by the very competent Bernadette Quattrone—to Othello’s wife.  

But none of these have ever seemed enough to prompt the persistent, single-minded effort Iago makes to destroy Othello. It just never seemed quite believable. Jackson’s interpretation, however, makes total sense. He creates so effective a portrayal of a sociopath that the university could require their psychology majors to come see one in action; it is a totally chilling presentation. The warmth of his smile and “good-guy” charm radiates believability even as he single-mindedly pursues the destruction of the tragedy. 

Wow. Just plain “Wow.” 

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