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Playing Juliet / Casting Othello

by Caleen Sinette Jennings
review in SF Weekly April 21, 1999 by Michael Scott Moore

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Teatro Shalom’s new production puts its Issues right up front.
Could Playing Juliet/Casting Othello be about anything besides
race? The two halves of the title match the two halves of the
show, and Playing Juliet is a miniplay about a black woman cast
as Shakespeare’s most famous heroine. Georgia, full of self-doubt,
and harassed for being in a play at all by her layabout boyfriend,
Jimmy, is having trouble getting her lines straight. She doesn’t like
the spoiled cokehead playing Romeo; she thinks the whole script
has a racist tinge, with its language of day and night; she suspects
the director of casting her with malicious irony as a “dark, ugly”
Juliet. So she acts difficult and threatens to quit, while the director,
Wendy, tries every tactic to make her stay. “We are not going
anywhere,” she says, “until we climb this wall of subtext.”

We’re supposed to feel that the play is falling to pieces in a morass
of resentment, loud voices, and opening-night pressure. But the
production needs more energy: A lot of the acting, like a lot of the
writing, is forced. The Shakespeare scenes feel awkward (on
purpose) but some of the rest does too. One problem is that
Georgia’s Issue is artificial: Why has she worked even this long on
the play if she thinks Juliet is too white and the director’s a
sarcastic bitch? Eloise B. Chitmon does an appealing job as the
peacemaking actress Lorraine, and Stephanie Taylor throws a lot
of good energy into Wendy, the frenzied director. But too many of
the other players deliver their lines with a drone of unconviction,
especially Lewis Sims as the sullen Philistine boyfriend, Jimmy.

Everyone comes alive in the second half. The same troupe of
actors are now doing a new show, Othello, and even though things
seem to be going smoothly, their lead has dropped out
unexpectedly. Georgia’s pregnant; an elitist named Dave is
directing; Wendy’s playing Desdemona; and Jimmy has found a
taste for theater just by hanging around and standing in as Othello.
Soon it comes out that he actually wants to play Othello: Wendy
has been coaching him through certain scenes, in private, and he
shows real signs of talent. But Dave doesn’t think Jimmy can do it
(and may want to play Othello himself, although he’s white).
Meanwhile, Georgia is jealous that Wendy’s been rehearsing
romantic scenes with Jimmy on the sly. Soon everyone starts
shouting again.

The racial issues in Casting Othello seem less contrived because
they’re grounded in Shakespeare’s text, and the boisterous debates
go better. Sims’ scenes as Othello are excellent; someone should
think about casting him in a full version of the play, if they haven’t
already. While the love affairs that congeal and fall apart are
mostly there to let the characters talk issues with each other --
class issues, gender issues -- the debates themselves at least are
funny (“For heaven’s sake, Jimmy, you think because you’re a
brother and you saw a video you can do this role”). Teatro
Shalom, as its name implies, is a deliberately multiethnic company,
and it stumbled on Caleen Sinnette Jennings’ script last year by
mistake. Neither company nor playwright has said anything new --
maybe there’s only so much to say about skin color -- but they’re
a good match, and when things warm up in the second half,
Casting Othello airs its Issues with force.

— Michael Scott Moore

Playing Juliet/Casting Othello. By Caleen Sinnette
Jennings. Directed by David Gassner. Produced by
Teatro Shalom. Starring Eloise B. Chitmon, Chris
Pflueger, Toran McGill, Stephanie Taylor, Barry
Levine, and Lewis Sims. At the Exit Theater, 156 Eddy
(between Mason and Taylor), through May 1. Call
602-4387.

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