That comes as no surprise in âOthello,â sharply directed here by Nigel Shawn Williams on a modern set with overly literal projections of trickling blood and what look like lice. (âIâll pour this pestilence into his ear,â Iago tells us in one of his chilling soliloquies.) As the Moorish general in the Venetian army who marries Desdemona, the white pearl of that societyâs aristocracy, Michael Blake establishes the psychosexual drama from the start.
He wears his confidence like a cockscomb but is clearly more at a loss in love than he ever was in war.