There’s a moment in Shakespeare Theatre Company’s scintillating staging of “Othello” when Wendell Pierce’s Moor teeters on the edge of sanity before careening into the abyss.
As the general asks Desdemona (an impeccable Olivia Cygan) to retrieve her handkerchief — an apparent smoking gun of infidelity found in another man’s chambers — his wife promptly spirals and stalls. “The handkerchief,” Othello requests, convulsively nodding through a strained smile. Desdemona’s continued pleas fall on deaf ears. “The handkerchief,” Othello repeats with the same overeager intonation, like a record stuck on repeat. “The handkerchief.”
