BELL Shakespeare’s regional tour of William Shakespeare's famous and passionate tragedy Othello will play across the Border and North East in coming weeks.
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For 25 years Bell Shakespeare has been producing the plays of William Shakespeare in a way that is relevant and exciting to Australian audiences.
Othello will tour 27 centres nationally, stopping at the Albury Entertainment Centre on Tuesday, July 26, and Wangaratta’s Performing Arts Centre on Saturday, July 30.
“Most people remember having to suffer through reading Shakespeare scripts at school for English Literature and being grateful – once they left school – that they would never have to read one again,” Wangaratta Performing Arts Centre arts and culture manager Penny Hargrave says.
”The way in which Bell Shakespeare brings 600-year-old plays to life in 2016 shows us just how wrong we were to wish we never had to read another one ever again.
“The human capacity for petty jealousies and revenge while reveling in the sheer wickedness of malicious manipulations is as much alive today as it was 600 years ago, we just can’t deal with in the same ways as Shakespeare’s protagonists did. More’s the pity.”
Directed by Bell’s Peter Evans, Othello is a devastating exploration of the battle between love and jealousy and will be performed at 27 centres as part of a national tour.
The triumphant general Othello returns from battle with the gratitude of the state – and the love of Desdemona – who defies social convention and her father’s will to marry him.
Jealousies around their match and Othello’s rise to prominence simmer to the surface, causing destructive rifts in a story that piles secret upon secret, and betrayal upon betrayal.
His ensign, Iago, harbours a deeply held resentment and his and Desdemona’s marriage is fatally undermined by the insinuations of a master manipulator.
Albury Entertainment Centre manager Brendan Maher said it had been two years since Bell Shakespeare had visited Albury and said it would be an outstanding production.
The anticipation of a classic show is also building at Wangaratta.
“This is the third visit by Bell Shakespeare to Wangaratta since the opening of the new performing arts centre and we are in no doubt that Othello will be as powerful and thought provoking as Henry IV and Julius Caesar,” Ms Hargrave says.