This is only problematic insofar as this should have been accomplished by Iago and Roderigo prior, but failed to do so.
Another character laudable character accomplishment was by the woman who played Bianca. Although a minor character in the play, I found her performance, out of all of the actors to be the most memorable. She never simply wandered onstage because it was her cue. All of her entrances were motivated. She came in with an objective and left with an objective. In addition, I was able to believe that every word that she spoke had a meaning behind it. It was apparent that despite her lower status in society, she still assumed that Cassio would marry her. All of her acting was genuine, sincere, and full of energy. This is what made her performance so wonderful.
In contrast, the performance given by the actress playing Desdemona was moderate. She clearly understood her character and had made choices about her character's motivations, but these choices were unclear. The most important choice that was overlooked was the nature of her love for Othello. Was it a love stemming from her infatuation with his accomplishments and visual difference, or was it a love stemming from her genuine love for Othello as a person. Sticking to one of these choices would produce a significantly different performance than the one given by this Desdemona. Because her choice was not clear, her performance suffered by failing to engage audience members. However, what contributed more to the downfall of her performance was her inability to convince the audience that she truly loved the Moor. Since the action of the play is driven by the theme of love (and all of the other emotions that accompany that feeling, such as jealousy), the inability of the actors to make their love for each other convincing severely damaged the overall production.
Additionally, although it was a conscious choice of the directors to cast a woman with a strong Russian accent, it was a choice that was distracting to audience members.
