Images: 
Total Rating: 
***
Ended: 
May 25, 2019
Country: 
USA
State: 
Illinois
City: 
Chicago
Company/Producers: 
Babes with Blades Theater Company
Theater Type: 
Regional
Theater: 
Factory Theater
Theater Address: 
1623 West Howard Street
Genre: 
Drama
Author: 
William Shakespeare
Director: 
Mignon McPherson Stewart
Review: 

It might have been the first production where Desdemona was strangled—twice—with a one-handed choke-hold, but that was because Brianna Buckley's right arm was encumbered with a sling mandated by an injury the week before. What was no accident, however, was the paradigm shift of Othello's misaccused wife struggling to escape the wrath of her angry husband. When your production is cast exclusively with female-identifying actors, though, gender dynamics can undergo intriguing changes: Speeches written as entreaties delivered as ultimatums, for example, or a bro's alleged snub initiating payback beginning as a locker-room prank before escalating to deadly proportions.

Where once "nontraditional" casting was regarded as mere novelty, the fresh outlook engendered thereby appears to be gaining popularity in mainstream circles. A case in point is Diana Coates, whose storefront-circuit performance as Henry V in 2017 drew critical acclaim, and who this summer will reprise it for the First Folio Shakespeare Festival Theatre at Oak Brook's Mayslake estate.

Critic: 
Mary Shen Barnidge
Date Reviewed: 
May 2019