Most productions treat entrance applause as a mere break in the action, a pause to allow the audience to celebrate a luminary.

But the current Broadway revival of Othello understands how to infuse this potential reprieve with artistic purpose.

When Denzel first walks on, Jake charges ahead with his dialogue,  drowned out by the audience’s rapture. While these devotees lavish their deafening praise, Denzel — still in character — waves his hand back and forth hanging limp by his side, almost like a psychosomatic tic.

Later in the play, when Othello starts suspecting Desdemona, his crippling mania manifests itself in stroke-esque symptoms, the most obvious of which being: that same jittery hand from Denzel’s introductory ovation. 

Which suggests that whatever Iago ultimately preys upon in Othello was latent from the beginning. 

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Othello isn’t director Kenny Leon’s first masterful handling of welcome clapping this Broadway season.

He clearly didn’t want Jim Parsons’ arrival in Our Town to remove the audience from the production’s tonal world, so he managed to establish a somber enough vibe beforehand to deter any hooting and hollering.