As Shakespeare Santa Cruz’s 2010 festival season draws near, Obie Award-winner Pam MacKinnon is overseeing the repertory company’s production of Othello (Aug. 3-29). Santa Cruz is the latest stop in this young director’s career, which has taken her all around the country, from New York to Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre Company to Hartford Stage in Connecticut and many others. A frequent collaborator with playwright Edward Albee, she has directed several of his plays, including the world premieres of At Home at the Zoo and Occupant.
As Shakespeare Santa Cruz’s 2010 festival season draws near, Obie Award-winner Pam MacKinnon is overseeing the repertory company’s production of Othello (Aug. 3-29). Santa Cruz is the latest stop in this young director’s career, which has taken her all around the country, from New York to Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre Company to Hartford Stage in Connecticut and many others. A frequent collaborator with playwright Edward Albee, she has directed several of his plays, including the world premieres of At Home at the Zoo and Occupant.
MacKinnon has not worked much with Shakespeare in the past, though she fondly recalls doing a very small, low-key production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and years before that, assisting with a much larger-scale Much Ado About Nothing. Othello marks her first experience directing a full-production Shakespeare play, and it may seem strange that a director who works almost exclusively with brand new or fairly new American plays should suddenly be helming this 16th-century tale of jealousy and revenge. MacKinnon, however, doesn’t see it as a great departure from her usual work. In her mind, Shakespeare and Edward Albee are both writers who poetically explore the best and worst of humanity. As a director, she sees herself as part of this storytelling process; it is her job to bring the story to the audience, and whether that story is modern or Elizabethan, the process is much the same.
MacKinnon acknowledges that she is used to directing plays with casts of no more than six to eight characters, whereas Othello has a cast of 24. There are big welcoming scenes and large drunken brawls to coordinate. However, she notes that the most intense scenes are the ones with only two actors on stage.
“At times it becomes a very intimate, one-man-whispering-in-another-man’s-ear kind of play,” says MacKinnon. She envisions some difficulty in transposing this quality to the outdoor stage of the Glen, but explains that in theater, it’s always a challenge to create a feeling of furtiveness or intimacy while still letting the audience in. And MacKinnon sees the open-air setting as an asset as well as a challenge. She thinks the natural environment will elevate the play, setting it apart from other productions of Othello, although she stresses that her overall goal isn’t to make this production different or set it apart. “You want to tell the story, and tell it really well,” she explains. “It’s not about creating a gimmick or some kind of explosive pyrotechnic.
MacKinnon points out that misogyny, racism and irrationality run unchecked in the militaristic, male-centered world of Othello—a statement by Shakespeare on how easily men can be corrupted in an unbalanced society. These themes are at the heart of the play; however, MacKinnon isn’t looking to emphasize them or to force-feed them to the audience, but merely to tell the story—the play, in short, will stand on its own.
When asked what her favorite Shakespeare play is, she answers, “I think it’s the one I’m working on right now, and it’s probably by virtue of working on it right now.” Shakespeare’s plays, she says, exist as great poetry, but when you hear the words over and over gain in a rehearsal hall, and when you study them and try to physicalize them on stage, they keep revealing themselves, like a Russian nesting doll. “While you’re working on them you feel a little smarter,” she says, “which is fun.”
For schedule and tickets, visit www.shakespearesantacruz.org.
