Apparently, sitting through the current production of Othello at the Skirball Center is worse than getting smothered. Ben Brantley’s review of Peter Sellars’ recent mounting described it as “exasperatingly misconceived,” and I’ve only heard from one person who managed to sit through the entire show. He’d announced this particular feat with an air of disappointed triumph that one might use after finishing the last page of a Mitch Albom novel. “Oh, yeah, I stayed till the end. All the way till the end.” He’d made it, but was it worth it?

I decided to find out if the reactions to the show were really that negative, and walked over to the theater around intermission last night. The scene was, in fact, pretty brutal. I basically haven’t seen a theatrical exodus that large since sitting through a community theater production of Clue: The Musical in Northern Michigan. I don’t want to ruin it for anyone, but the handicapped Eastern European with a stutter did it.

Anyway,  I was able to catch some of the fleeing attendees last night and find out what was exactly so bad about the show.

Evan Prizant, a local film student, couldn’t quite pin it down. “I can’t figure out what was so boring. It’s really slow. Really slow.” His friend Sydney agreed. “Everybody’s leaving. There are definitely not this many smokers. I have yet to know anyone who’s stayed through the second act.”

Zane Dowty, who was visiting from England, said that he felt “that they did kind of gut the whole racial dynamic of the original play which is a powerful part. The whole point is kind of diminished.”

Dowty is referring to the fact that the character of Othello in the current production is played by a Hispanic actor rather than a Black one. However, in a slightly more significant change, this actor, as well as the rest of the company, spends most of his time on a bed made of televisions or chatting on his Blackberry. Maybe Iago was just jealous because Othello had more BBM contacts.

But the most depressing moment of the night was when Peter Sellars himself came out to urge those who’d managed to make it past intermission to occupy the now empty seats in the front of the theater. “Move up. Please move up. The closer you are, the better. It’s a better experience.”

He continued pointing to the seats that almost 2/3 of the audiences had vacated. “All these seats up here are empty, please move forward.”

Photo via NYTimes