BWW Reviews: DESDEMONA: A PLAY ABOUT A HANDKERCHIEF, Park Theatre, May 15 2014

Ever wondered what's going on offstage while Iago drips poison into Othello's ear, feeding the green-eyed monster until it swallows both of them and poor old Cassio? Paula Vogel tells us in Desdemona: A Play About A Handkerchief (at the Park Theatre until 8 June) - and it's a bit of a surprise.

Desdemona (Alice Bailey Johnson) has been bored since convent school, finding a release from tedium through anonymous sex with any man - except, ironically, the one whom her husband Othello suspects, Cassio. She finds a kindred spirit in Cassio's lover, Bianca (Ursula Early), who makes a decent living in the indecent occupation of prostitute. Making an indecent living in the decent occupation of servant to Desdemona, is Emilia (Ingrid Lacey), who understandably hates her husband Iago, but is as trapped as a wife as she is trapped as a servant by her lack of money.

The three circle each other uneasily on a stage set in the round. Ms Bailey Johnson captures Desdemona's ennui and cruelty, but would someone so clever, so sexual and so experienced with the ways of men really have chanced her life on Othello's control of his rage? Ms Early has something of Barbara Windsor's "Ooh saucy!" Carry-On days about her, but with a desperate edge that reveals itself slowly over a gin or two - well, ten. Ms Lacey's Emilia gets the best one-liners and reflects something of her husband's slithery obsequiousness with her mistress and his Little Man smallmindedness in her dealings with Bianca, whom she treats with a haughty disdain as she fingers her rosary.

80 minutes all-through with the fateful handkerchief whipped away in the first minute only to appear, now full of dread, in the last ten, director James Bounds keeps the pace up through the slightly irritating blackouts and gets plenty of physical comedy out of the younger women as a counterpoint to the sardonic quips of the eldest. This is a play best enjoyed if you're familiar with Othello (if not, reading the Wikipedia summary will suffice) and one that resonates with today's women, many of whom will recognise that their options have not extended much in 400 years or so.

Photo Sam Cope