One of the lesser problems confronting the admirable Second Age Theatre Company is the constraint that its productions must usually be confined to the dramas pre scribed by the curriculum of the Leaving Certificate, so that changes must be rung in each reproduction of a limited number of works.

In this year's production of Shakespeare's paramount dra ma of jealousy, the changes are rung with a vengeance. Ozzie Jones, the director, has provided one of the most original, stimulating and provocative productions of Othello seen in Ireland for several decades.

It should greatly fuel the discussions which teachers have with their pupils on what the play is about, even as it entertains its audiences with a fresh interpretation of the work.

It takes some risks. Here, Iago is black, hip, bluff and jovial. Othello is taut, tightlipped, small-minded and more like a minor functionary than a war hero. Here, the theatricality of the piece is enhanced and enlivened, but often at the expense of the depth of both the drama and tragedy of the text.

Here, because Iago is black and Othello merely darker than white, the racism that has traditionally given the play its Elizabethan (and subsequent) emotional charge is largely defused, and we are down to the basic human virtues and vicissitudes of sex and ambition.

Here, we are down to tricks and machinations and always on the verge of melodrama and comedy rather than inexorable tragedy.

Mr Jones and his committed players keep playing theatrical tricks with style and technique (and suffer somewhat, as a re sult, from audience titters when Othello starts to murder Desdemona).

They seem often to be playing The Vengeance of Iago rather than The Tragedy of Othello, but their playing is always consistent and has its own theatrical integrity even if it is not always what has been the intepretation traditionally accepted as authentic in these parts.

Johnny Lee Davenport dominates as the larger-than-life villain Iago, and Michael Grennell is his apparently willing victim, Othello. Janet Mor an's Desdemona is plainly straightforward, yet showing a propensity for innocent playfulness, while Caroline Gray's Emilia is earthily dull until she realises the enormity of her husband Iago's propensity for evil.

Robert Price's Cassio is suitably upright, forthright and doomed.

Barbara Bradshaw's set designs are functionally abstract, Leonore McDonagh's costumes appropriately timeless, Ciara McCarthy's lighting adequately illuminating. Ozzie Jones's musical score is emphatically modern and rhythmically mood-inducing.

The whole production is well worth seeing, if only to provoke a discussion on what one of Shakespeare's better plays is really about in terms of contemporary theatre.