First there was method acting (sometimes it wins you an Emmy, sometimes it bristles your costars, sometimes it does both). Then a novel phenomenon called method dressing took red carpets by storm (remember Zendaya’s perfectly executed tennis-themed looks for her Challengers press tour?) Next up: The method dressing room.
Othello star Jake Gyllenhaal’s backstage home-away-from-home in Broadway’s Barrymore theater is an extension of the Shakespearean world he’s been steeped in while developing his version of Iago, the duplicitous ensign to the titular Venetian army general played by Denzel Washington. The revival is a modern take on The Bard’s centuries-old tragedy with relatively spare set design, so Gyllenhaal’s dressing room presented an opportunity to bring the narrative to life with more evocative decor.
“I was told that it’s the dressing room that Marlon Brando was in for A Streetcar Named Desire.
We’re talking about faith. Last December, just before Christmas, actor Denzel Washington was baptized and licensed as a minister, and so it hasn’t taken long, chatting about his return to Broadway playing the title role in Othello, for conversation to turn to matters of belief. Not religious, per se; Shakespeare’s great tragedy turns on themes of love and jealousy and betrayal. Perhaps, Othello’s choice to trust the evidence of his eyes—a planted handkerchief—over his innocent wife Desdemona’s protests that she has never strayed, is a kind of loss of faith, a misguided embrace of rationality over spirit. 
