If Othello is a tragedy, the new Othello on Broadway—starring Denzel Washington as Othello, Jake Gyllenhaal as Iago, with tickets going for around a thousand dollars; y’know, that one—didn’t get the memo.

That lucky group of people who will get to see this “Othello” will get to luxuriate in Washington’s silky, fluent delivery of the Bard’s English, and to thrill to the painful irony of Othello’s fundamental lack of understanding that he’s being played by the jealous,

The big-ticket revival of Shakespeare’s tragedy lacks a big-ticket idea.