By William Shakespeare. Directed by Bob Frazer. A Bard on the Beach production. On the Howard Family Stage on Thursday, July 7. Continues in rep until September 17

This production of Othello is okay, which is considerably less than you want from Othello.

Luc Roderique and Kayvon Kelly, who are playing the title character and Iago in this production, pitched this project—and the idea of setting the story during the American Civil War—to Christopher Gaze, artistic director of Bard on the Beach, a couple of years ago.

The Civil War setting speaks to the play’s concerns with racism and to the cultural wound that is still bleeding in the streets of America. For me, that connection was more intellectual than visceral, however, and that’s at least partly because Othello never deeply feels like an outsider in this mounting.

Othello is a general, a warrior, and he talks about how bad he is at being a courtier. Other characters emphasize his difference, his Moorishness, and, in a classic racist strategy, they sexualize the threat they feel from him. When Othello marries Desdemona without her father’s permission, Iago warns her father that “an old black ram is tupping your white ewe.” Shame and the threat of exclusion stalk Othello—and they destabilize him. Temporarily grounded by being loved by the openhearted Desdemona, he says, “And when I love thee not, chaos is come again.”

In the early going, Roderique shows us almost nothing of this instability and its attendant dangers. His Othello is a relaxed, elegant young guy, sweetly in love. He’s nice, but he’s not very interesting.

As Iago, Kelly does little to up the ante. Iago drives the play, and in the opening acts, he gets a lot more stage time than Othello does. Famously, the character can be charismatically evil. But Kelly never plumbs the depths of Iago’s depravity; in Kelly’s hands, Iago’s cruelty is reduced to businesslike meanness. Fortunately, Roderique unleashes himself emotionally in the evening’s second half, and the production gains much-needed stakes.

Playing Iago’s wife Emilia, Luisa Jojic delivers a compelling characterization. Even on the page, Emilia is intriguing: she argues that her chastity has a price—and why shouldn’t it, given the way that men treat women? But, unlike her husband, Emilia is not a sociopath. When she realizes the carnage that Iago has caused, she falls into a fit of grief and rage, and in Jojic’s performance, Emilia’s agony yields the most arresting emotional passage of the evening.

There are interesting portraits elsewhere as well. Director Bob Frazer and actor Jeff Gladstone offer a fresh take on Othello’s friend, Cassio. Iago convinces Othello that Cassio is Desdemona’s lover and he is often played as a dewy innocent. But Gladstone plays him as a shame-faced alcoholic and a bit of a rake. The text supports these choices and they work.

Kayla Doerksen offers a more assertive and less youthful Desdemona than we usually see. My take is that this approach mutes the dynamics between Othello and Desdemona, but there is no denying the vulnerability of Doerksen’s Desdemona when she realizes that the man she loves is about to murder her.

Andrew Cownden plays Roderigo, a courtier whom Iago gulls, and Cownden embodies all of the comedy—and all of the pathos—that the role offers. Cownden is currently relegated to character parts, but I would love to see this gifted actor play one of the big Shakespearean heroes.

The seating in the Douglas Campbell tent is configured differently this year, which allows for a wide playing area and a deep thrust stage. With its crumbling columns and battered tiled floor, Amir Ofek’s set is handsome, although it’s so vast that it sometimes feels vacant.

I wanted more.