The setting couldn't be more ideal or authentic. Every summer in the courtyard of Hradčany's Black Tower, the Letní Shakespeare Festival stages three of the Bard's plays, utilizing the neighboring buildings as well as the very ramparts of the castle wall. It feels as if one has traveled back to the first stirrings of Elizabethan drama, before the construction of the Globe and the Rose, when performances were held in the courtyards of inns.

This year's festival has produced three plays that cleverly reveal Shakespeare's range as a playwright: the comedy Twelfth Night, the tragedy of Othello and one of the problem plays, the comedy-drama of The Merchant of Venice. As in years past, the festival has been able to attract some of the best Czech actors to participate. Merchant found Bolek Polívka reprising his famous Shylock, along with his gifted daughter, Anna Polívková, playing the role of Jessica. Twelfth Night provided two superb performances from Miroslav Táborský as Feste and Jan Vlasák as Malvolio.

Othello has a substantial cast at its disposal as well. Švandovo Divadlo's Michal Dlouhý has corked-up for the Moor (a role he plays on alternate evenings with Martin Zahálka), Oldřich Navrátil takes on Iago and the much talked-about Lucie Vondráčková assumes the part of Desdemona (alternating with Zuzana Vejvodová). With excellent character actors like Ladislav Frej as Brabantio and Miloš Kopečný as the Doge, this production could have been worth seeking out. However, no matter how accomplished its cast, Othello can't quite overcome its shoddy direction.

If director Viktor Polesný's handling of Twelfth Night was overwhelmed by his hamming supernumeraries from the bits-and-skits school of dramatics, Othello's director, Petr Kracik, shows a deficiency in structuring a play. There are many moments in the first act when he seems to be in control (except for his direction of Dlouhý). But the second act, in which he takes the shears to Martin Hilský's translation, is an unmitigated mess.

In cutting out great chunks of dialogue (and even dismissing the entire Bianca subplot), Kracik races the action to that final, fateful confrontation between Othello and Desdemona in their bedroom. In doing so, he has ineptly transformed one of the great tragedies of the world stage into a murderous domestic squabble.

The primary problem is with Othello. In insisting that the Moor be played on one note of gruff pique throughout the entire play, Kracik diminishes this giant's fall. There is no chivalry or majesty in the character. Rather, in a dangerously racist fashion, Othello is presented as almost animalistic. Granted, at one point he does admit to being "rude in my speech, and little bless'd with the soft phrase of peace" — but he says this with humility, and probably as an attempt to deflect white Venetians' loathing for "the other."

Dlouhý, a good actor, rails and growls from the top of the play to the ludicrous finale, where, with two swift kicks of his dying legs, he expires next to Desdemona's dead body. The audience, naturally, laughed. Coleridge famously said, "There is no ferocity in Othello; his mind is majestic and composed." Here he's a demented epileptic who looks like Al Jolson.

What might have been is easily seen in the other performances. Navrátil is superb, portraying Iago with carefree wickedness. I've never seen such an attractive Iago, someone who, through his soliloquies, easily wins the audience's confidence. Were his machinations against a true tragic hero, we would have felt extreme discomfort in lending him our ears.

Ladislav Frej's Brabantio is also powerful as Desdemona's angry father. He's the real test of Venetian tolerance for its minorities, and it's not an encouraging example. Confused and distraught over his daughter's marriage to the Moor, Frej acts inconsolable while maintaining enough biting, insolent wit to express his grievances.