Iago Speaks is, simply, a flawless must-see gem.
The script, by Daniel Macdonald, should be taught in MFA programmes to show aspiring dramatists how to seamlessly weave together slapstick and “big ideas,” how to kindle a story that comes into full blaze with dramatic irony within its short running time, and how to tie up all loose ends at the finish in a way that feels inescapably fated yet unforeseen. And, throughout it all, to gallop so propulsively through the tale that the audience can never look away.
As if stunning writing weren’t enough, Iago Speaks also offers dazzling performances. Though Iago is in the title of the show, the character of The Jailer is the soul of this play. A stock character in Shakespeare’s works who always arrives just after the action, The Jailer here is the impetus for everything that happens and a stand-in for the common person.
Joshua Beaudry imbues this central character with a core of quiet dignity and even a sort of everyday heroism underneath his frenetic stumblings. He switches registers at blinding speed, one minute clowning and cajoling, then delivering Shakespearean lines, then slyly slipping in crude modern vernacular. His character covers enormously complex territory, and Beaudry makes it all appear effortless and always entirely believable.
Skye Brandon, as Iago, is the perfect foil to The Jailer’s madcap antics. His character uncoils like a snake, the kind of menace more chilling for its surface amiability. It’s a smaller role, but Brandon’s performance ensures that it is equally weighty.
Iago Speaks owes an obvious debt to Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, but the ideas here feel no less fresh, and the effect is more homage than derivativeness. Where Rosencrantz remains locked into the fictional universe of Hamlet, the characters in Iago Speaks step into their own world, and a great deal of the fun is in figuring out along with them exactly what sort of world that might be.
Every aspect of this production is carefully conceived and brilliantly executed. If you’re a Shakespeare aficionado, you cannot miss this play. However, don’t let an unfamiliarity with the Bard keep you away: while there are extra delights for the connoisseurs, the sumptuous intellectual and comedic richness of the script is entirely standalone.
Iago Speaks is easily the best thing I have seen yet at this year’s Fringe.
