Similar arguments repeat throughout generations, in the same way that Harlem Duet brings the relationship between Othello and his wife Billie from 2000 Harlem to the vaudeville industry in the 1920s, and to a Southern plantation in the 1860s. But Billie, embodied by Griffith, is still a woman rarely seen on stage today. Griffith handles Billie’s screeds against Othello and society — the moments in which Sears is most poetic — with almost violent attention. “We’re all mad, we just appear to be functional,” Billie tells Othello. Carly Maga is a Toronto-based theatre critic and a freelance contributor for the Star.

Source: thestar September 28, 2018 15:11 UTC