Sun. April 4

Last call! Surrounded by the Moorish minarets and curving architecture of the Villa Victoria Center for the Arts Actors’ Shakespeare Project offered their latest masterful interpretation of the Bard; this time putting the thrown spotlight on the most famous Moore in literature- "Othello." Led by the initially jovial but ever-less-patient Jason Bowen (in photo) as the titular tortured soul, the cast also features Ken Cheeseman as the smiling villain and provocative pot-stirrer Iago, a dual role of Thatcher-ed Duke and villain’s put-upon wife - both portrayed convincingly by Paula Langton, Michael Forden-Walker as the shining but morally faltering lieutenant Cassio, the ever-moping Doug Lockwood as the wronged rube Roderigo, the emotionally arresting Brooke Hardman as Desdemona (in photo) and the powerful presence of Bobbie Steinbach as her soul-torn mother Barbantia and later as the eventual right-setting ruler Lodovica. As the cast moves about the puzzle-pieced stage (that cleverly flips from light to darker tones at intermission, much like the popular game named for this play), a web of copper and fiber-optic wires draws the stage-flanking audience from looking at each other and reacting to each other’s reaction to a central point on one of the movable cheese-wedge platforms that represent various places and positions in the play. Every so often, the long, involving speeches are broken up by snatches of bawdy drinking songs and mournful swan songs and bits of battle designed by Robert Najarian. Both the real music and the real violence, however, come from the story – a tale of prejudice and perjury that pushes its victim to (to quote from the similarly captivating tragedy “Hamlet”) “murder most foul.” When it is all over, the audience is nearly as shaken and moved as the actors and the stage itself.Tickets: $25-$47. The show closes today.

(contributed by Matt Robinson)

85 West Newton St., 866-811-4111 www.actorsshakespeareproject.org.