Golda Rosheuvel

This picture was taken mere minutes after Golda Rosheuvel had come offstage having given a rivetingly intense performance in the title role of ‘Othello’ at Liverpool’s Everyman theatre tonight. You wouldn’t know she’d just been onstage for over 2 hours, giving it her all. She seems so relaxed!

The production, directed by the Everyman’s Artistic Director Gemma Bodinetz, was an absolute triumph! www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEpyJ40ulTg

I hadn’t studied the play or seen a production since my teenage years but it all came back very quickly, and it struck me how much this is really Iago’s play. Happily, Patrick Brennan did not disappoint as the vile and scheming, hate-fuelled architect of Othello’s downfall. In fact, credit is due to the whole cast, all members of the Everyman’s repertory company, who were uniformly excellent www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_SkB7WhhOM

The woman sitting to my left was clearly unfamiliar with the plot and I’m sure Shakespeare himself would’ve been delighted by the audible gasps she emitted as each plot device was revealed – she was clearly gripped by the action! Never has the humble handkerchief been utilised to such devastating effect!

The casting of a woman in the role of Othello has been a talking point but Golda Rosheuvel herself has spoken about how ‘normal’ it seems to play a female general - married against the will of Desdemona’s racist/homophobic father, but eaten away by the suspicion that her wife has been unfaithful with a man www.thestage.co.uk/features/interviews/2018/golda-rosheuvel-interview-lesbian-othello-liverpool-everyman and she inhabits the role with absolute authority and heart-breaking pain. I was so pleased that I had the opportunity to tell her how much she’d moved me with her performance.

 

Today’s song is the almost spookily appropriate ‘Suffocated Love’ by Tricky www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMl3AMFLB1Y