Death Horse puts on bold shoes and waves goodbye to Shakespeare in 'Bye Bye'

Amsterdam-based company Dood Paard itself translated Shakespeare's 'Othello' and waves goodbye to the bard with 'Bye Bye'. The quirky collective performs a one-and-a-half-hour topical moral sketch and soul mirror, in which pointing at 'The Other' is central.

Shakespeare's plays are quite often performed quite reverently. . Moreover, the admired 'bard' from Stratford-upon-Avon gave the English language numerous expressions that are still in vogue today. Some of his tragedies may well appear flat and soap opera-like to the contemporary viewer. As far as I am concerned, the same applies to Othello. None of the deeply human feelings of love and jealousy, ambition and revenge, are spared the characters in this classic tragedy of jealousy, and this is also widely expressed. Personally, I therefore see little difference with the cardboard characters from soap operas like As the World Turns or Goede Tijden, Slechte Tijden.

Kuno Bakker and Gilles Biesheuvel of Dood Paard seem to subscribe to that vision with their translation of 'Othello' that they stage with Chaib Massaoudi. In their hands, the treatise on how anime is the noblest human being is a means of not emphasising for the umpteenth time the great themes of love and jealousy. Their Othello is not about ambition and revenge, but concentrates on 'pointing at The Other'.

Death Horse lets 'Bye Bye' begin with Moroccan actor Chaib Massaoudi. He comes on with an overhead projector and chair, as if he were an assistant or roadie. He plugs it in, arranges the sheets and suddenly launches into Arabic (or Berber?). He tells how a chambermaid finds the mangled corpse of a woman in a hotel room: anonymous and stripped of any personality. Then Biesheuvel enters. He starts off in puffy Dutch and literally relegates Massaoudi to a side character: he remains sitting against a side wall and takes no part in the action. Sometimes he changes a sheet on the overhead projector and he may (or must) control the music. Massaoudi is just about right as an arbiter between Biesheuvel and Bakker when they cannot work out who gets to play Othello. He, the outsider, 'The Other', determines their identity.

Death Horse is not about the intrigues of an alleged adulterous wife and manipulations surrounding the black nobleman Othello. It is human identity and especially racial issues that claim the lead role. Throughout 'Bye Bye', Dutchman of Moroccan descent Massaoudi is the coloured outsider, while Gilles Biesbeuvel, black-clad as Moor of Venice plays the role of 'noble'. That black noble discriminates against his adjutant Iago, scolds his loving wife, treats Massaoudi like scum and makes a fool of himself: after all, extreme cynicism boomerangs. Biehevel's Othello is also invariably referred to as 'The Berber' in the play, which is not exactly meant as a compliment. Where the real Berber is thus ignored next to the playing surface, nested becomes, the dyed-in-the-wool Othello 'The Berber' misjudges his own pretentious noble character.

'Bye Bye' is full of humour and winks and does not take Shakespeare very seriously, but it does take itself very seriously. Biesheuvel and Bakker play all the characters from Shakespeare's original, indicated by changing scarves, on mismatched shoes. Thus, Bakker and Biesheuvel are literally wobbly when they assume roles. Similarly, they stand metaphorically shaky because they derive their identity from manipulating each other. How solid is that foundation when you mainly point at 'The Other' and don't face your own role? In the finale, Othello can even keep clean hands: Massaoudi has to come and carry out the murder that ends the play. So he is literally given that one.

It is the essence of pointing at 'The Other' that in 'Bye Bye' is literally and figuratively beyond Shakespeare's 'Othello'. Death Horse thus waves goodbye to Shakespeare by placing the original play on a collapsing 'island'; a relic of days gone by.

So much for literary kiss-and-ride. With 'Bye Bye', Dood Paard presents a contemporary comedy of manners and soul mirror at the same time. Classic themes of Shakespeare are ditched. The performance focuses entirely on the racial and multicultural issues in the original play. Thus, in Death Horse's translation and retelling, the seventeenth-century bard Shakespeare is nevertheless highly topical again.

‘'Bye Bye' by Dood Paard. Theatre Frascati, Amsterdam, 11 to 26 March. Then at Theater Kikker, Utrecht, 30 March to 2 April. www.dead horse.en