SOURCE: Macaulay, Alastair. “Much to Love about Othello as It Comes to London.” Financial Times (10 January 2000): 16.

In the following review of the 2000 Royal Shakespeare Company staging of Othello directed by Michael Attenborough, Macaulay praises the production, noting that although Ray Fearon's performance as Othello was good, there was “no greatness about this Moor.”

I love the way that Shakespeare's plays are never just “about” one thing. Even when there is not a double plot, each single plot contains its own several strands. Othello is about race; about jealousy; about malice; about motive … so that, while we watch all these things coming together in the great scenes between Othello and Iago, we see a single situation from multiple angles.

And Shakespeare keeps turning his focus on every other character: on Desdemona sighing “O, these men, these men!”, on Cassio's affair with the temperamental Bianca, on the duped and fretful...