Desdemona: A Play About a Handkerchief

Here, through the imagination of playwright Paula Vogel, is what Shakespeare didn't show us in Othello: Desdemona, the doomed wife of the Moor general; Emilia, the equally doomed wife of the lethally conniving Iago; and Bianca, the courtesan with a thing for the pawn Cassio, dishing and dissing the men in their lives. In this telling, they've had way more men than Shakespeare ever let on. Here, though, the deceit and treachery the women visit on each other are center stage.

The fledgling Promethean Theater in South Florida has chosen this 1979 play by Vogel (who would win the Pulitzer in 1998 for How I Learned to Drive) for its second production, which would be first-rate if not for some auditory lapses. The birdsong in the background at the start of the play goes on a distractingly long time; and the metallic sound effect that's meant to signal the passage of time or a knock on a door or approaching doom is strangely muffled. Most regrettably, two of the three accomplished actresses who make up the cast seem to have trouble modulating their voices for the 90-seat shoebox in suburban Miami Lakes. Only Pamela Roza, as an Irish Emilia, gets it right throughout.

Australia native Lisa Minett as Desdemona has the diction of the lady her character's supposed to be, but too many of her lines get lost; Samara Siskind's rendering of Bianca as Cockney is so loud and harsh, the lines are distorted. Maybe that's why the biggest laughs come when physical comedy (Emilia giving Desdemona a massage) meets exaggerated, pun-nish pronunciation (as when Desdemona amid talk of ASS-ignations, bemoans being stuck with Othello rather than Lodovico - who here becomes LEUD-o-vico).

Production values, aside from the aforementioned sound, are solid. The single set is a combined laundry room and stable supply room. Costumes and hair seem right, as does the lighting - especially in the last moments of the play as the dishing stops and the doom hastens its approach.