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‘Red Velvet’ at Chicago Shakespeare: A black Othello who shocked staid old Covent Garden

Dec 28, 2017 – 8:27 am
CST_RedVelvet_01_feature 550 (Liz Lauren)

Review: Covent Garden’s greatest tragedian has collapsed in the midst of his 1833 “Othello” run, requiring the theater to swap in a substitute for the traditional blackface role of the Moorish general who commits a crime of passion against his fair-skinned wife. Perhaps London might delight in the novelty of a 25-year-old “African” actor to save the day. Dion Johnstone stars in this emotionally charged drama – based on an actual event – by British playwright Lolita Chakrabarti, who likes her humor dry. ★★★★

Role Playing: Dion Johnstone turned outsider Antony to bloody purpose in ‘Julius Caesar’

Mar 19, 2013 – 1:29 pm
Actor Dion Johnstone

Interview: The actor who portrays Marc Antony in Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar” draws one of the greatest speeches in the Bard’s canon: the dramatically pivotal funeral oration for the slain Caesar. But that opportunity, says Dion Johnstone, whose eloquent and driven Marc Antony fires the current production at Chicago Shakespeare Theater, comes freighted with compact and perilous challenges. “From the moment Marc Antony enters the Senate and sees Caesar’s bloody corpse, with Brutus and the other assassins all still there, he’s in serious danger,” the actor says. “And despite his overwhelming grief, he has to think fast.”

Chicago Shakespeare Theater texts ‘Caesar,’ modernized and picture-perfectly true to Bard

Feb 15, 2013 – 7:35 pm
David Darlow as Caesar's ghost in Julius Caesar at Chicago Shakespeare 2013 credit Liz Lauren

Review: ★★★★