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Dominic Cavendish Theatre Critic 02 August 2018 7:40am BST Sir Mark Rylance is back on home turf. Or perhaps that should be home timber.  For the first time since the formidable pairing of

his gliding, ethereal Olivia in Twelfth Night and his impish-dastardly Richard III in 2012 (before Wolf Hall put him on another level of household recognition) he’s treading the main-stage

boards at his alma mater, treating us to Shakespeare and back-stabbing, conniving Iago. This is in its own way a casting coup (artistic regimes come and go here, but Sir Mark – the first

artistic director to throw open the Wooden O’s doors in the late Nineties – almost seems imbued with the soul of the place).  But in addition, director Claire van Kampen (his wife, composer

and also the playwright who gave him yet another Globe hit, Farinelli and the King) has secured the services of André Holland for the lead. Holland brings in his own army of admirers, having

played a pivotal role in the runaway Oscar-winning film Moonlight. It’s a theatrical marriage that fits the treacherous hell of Shakespeare’s conception to near perfection. By his own

admission Holland, from Alabama, is venturing onto_ terra incognita_; he has stayed away from the role in the past, retains his American accent and makes his presence felt through an

old-world solemnity of movement, poise and gracefulness. By contrast, Rylance declares from the moment he first strides quickly on, in red cap, turquoise tunic and furtive, restless air,

that he knows  every inch of this exposed stage.  These two players’ marked, diverging relation to the space, then, serves to emphasise the difference between the characters beyond the

standard racial distinctions. Rylance is a great Shakespearean actor because he refuses to be the great Shakespearean actor. His manner is often daringly offhand, he falters across lines, at

times plays the fool. He weaponises that customary gentleness of his so that Iago isn’t an overt schemer, even in his soliloquies; his motivation is a mystery even to himself.  The downside

is a sense of compounded understatement – which threatens to make the second-half underpowered; sap the malignancy.  Just as Holland abstains from overt frothing jealousy, so Rylance –

dabbing away with a handkerchief at his brow, choirboy meek – keeps his emotions tightly bottled. Yet helped by sensational performances from the women – Jessica Warbeck’s honest, plaintive

Desdemona, Sheila Atim’s towering, truth-filled Emilia – the horror of what unfolds in the bed-chamber hits duly home.  And Rylance’s Iago, as if by magic, dwindles before us into a

pathetic, rat-like creature – essence of evil’s banality.   UNTIL OCT 13. TICKETS: 020 7401 9919; SHAKESPEARESGLOBE.COM