[In the following review of the 2001 Public Theater staging of Othello, Phillips notes the “austere power” of director Doug Hughes's production, but laments the lack of a more compelling Othello to match Liev Schreiber's masterful Iago.]

Othello is Shakespeare's most intimate tragedy, one in which the audience is made privy from the start to Iago's corrosive envy and hatred, his malign manipulations unrestrained by moral bounds. And it is the playwright's most concentrated drama, one in which the villain makes quick work of love, loyalty and honor as he destroys a forthright war hero and his innocent young bride using a stealthy arsenal of artful insinuation, pregnant pauses and a handkerchief embroidered with strawberries. The play, which opened Sunday at the Public Theater in a compelling production directed by Doug Hughes, and starring Keith David as Othello, the masterly Liev Schreiber as Iago and Kate Forbes as Desdemona, has its share of swordplay. But the true battlefield is one of wordplay—a personal realm in which language, well-aimed, is a powerful weapon.

Othello's soaring rhetorical gifts win the heart of his bride, Desdemona, who is entranced by his tales of far-off lands and courageous adventures. And they persuade the Duke, despite the anger of Desdemona's father, to give the couple his blessing. But this African prince, a foreign-born hero of the Venetian public realm, finds himself brought to ground by Iago, his low-born ensign, a gutter-fighter who can paint a lurid picture of Desdemona's supposed sexual deception with just a few well-placed strokes. Iago creates an illusory world in which he is perceived as an “honest” friend by those he sees as enemies and is both director and playwright of their undoing.

Iago's self-justifying motives—fury at being passed over for promotion; contempt for Cassio, the higher-born man who got the job from Othello; suspicion that his own wife, Emilia, has slept with the Moor; lust for Othello's wife, Desdemona—never quite explain the intensity of his anger or the scope of his evil.

The Public's Anspacher Theater proves to be the perfect setting for this rapid descent into hell, where its thrust stage and steeply banked seats keep some 275 ticket-holders within spitting distance of Iago's devilry. And director Doug Hughes puts the action at even closer range, staging the play in the aisles as well.

This could be a painful proximity in a production less sure-footed than the Public's. But Mr. Hughes's American cast shows a rare ease with both the music and meaning of Shakespeare's language. (Messrs. David and Schreiber are both noted voice-of-God narrators of TV documentaries, as well as classical actors.) Just as important, their well-chosen gestures serve as narrative footnotes for the modern audience, conveying the intent of words and phrases that the past four centuries of linguistic change have obscured.

It is, however, Mr. Schreiber's show from the start, more Iago than Othello. There is something in the way he carries himself, in his slightly askew posture, twitchy movements and the hooded nature of his gaze, that makes the skin crawl. Yet Iago's ability to gull both the innocents and sophisticates around him is plausible. Thanks to Mr. Schreiber's finely calibrated performance, we see with horror—and a guilty thrill—how Iago, his own self-control always threatening to slip away, is able to prey upon the individual weaknesses of each of his victims and play on the instruments of their destruction, remaining in their deluded eyes (until his final unmasking) a trusted confidante.

Mr. David is a less compelling actor, lacking the charismatic fire needed to balance Mr. Schreiber's infernal flame. When proud Othello is pulled downward, caught in the sinkhole of Iago's lies and fetid imagery, as well as his own unworldliness in the private realm, we don't feel the full measure of the distance he has traveled. Still, this Othello's epileptic seizure is frighteningly real, as are the tender kisses he plants on the sleeping mouth of the bride he is about to strangle to death.

In Catherine Zuber's 18th-century costumes, Ms. Forbes projects a nubile innocence as young Desdemona, her breasts all but popping out of her tightly bodiced dresses—no wonder she attracts the attention of these soldiers. But there is a firm determination beneath her soft curves, as when she pleads her own case with her choleric father, Brabantio (Jack Ryland), and lobbies for Cassio (Jay Goede) with her husband. In the secondary role of Iago's wife, an earthy Becky Ann Baker (probably best known as the mom on Freaks and Geeks) makes the most of Emilia's horror at the unwitting role she has played in Iago's cruel and deadly schemes.

Robert Wierzel's dramatic lighting, David Van Tieghen's expressionistic sound and Neil Patel's spare but strong scenic design (moveable Gothic screens, hanging lanterns, African drums)—underscore the austere power of this Othello.