Great Books

Jake Gyllenhall’s Iago was an absolute revelation — as in, it was a performance that revealed the play. 

It’s hard to know where to start. 
He made the “motiveless malice” feel emotionally motivated despite coldly calculating. He moved with ease between bully and orator; snake and sniveler; actor and director.

He not only manipulated all action, he manipulated the audience too. 

It occurred to me for the first time that Iago is likely Shakespeare’s depiction of the devil himself (I believe the text suggests it too)

It’s striking to say this, but such a brilliant pitch left nearly no room for Othello himself. Even Denzel’s Othello. (I actually do wonder if the play itself is meant to be this way.)

But Denzel had his spot in the final scene. Reversal and recognition. Pity and fear. It might be the most perfect Aristotelian tragedy since Oedipus. 

I hope you can see this production. I may see it again, since this is only Day 2 of Previews and I think it can still go from great to legendary.

Yaweh: "I am what I am."
Iago: "I am not what I am."

I've been re-reading Shakespeare's Othello, and I'm blown away by Iago like never before. 10x deeper and more troubling than Milton's Lucifer (in 1/10th the lines).

playing /bracket, assisting /bracky, talking /greatbooks

identity exists in superposition - simultaneously authentic and performative until observed through action, where character collapses into either integration or deception depending on whether we recognize that selfhood isn't just declaration but rather the quantum boundary where being and seeming converge