By Robert Avila

THERE ARE A lot of believers floating around this supposedly secular and disillusioned age. The general rapacity and chaos of the system seem to call up both extremes at once. But it's no surprise those at the top like to strike garish poses when it comes to shows of piety and honor. In the politics of war and rapine, such shows are wonderfully distracting baubles on the chest of naked, predatory power.

California Shakespeare Theater's uneven, but at times electric, production of Othello, which opens the company's new season, reminds us how Iago – exercising pure will for its own sake without the hindrance of beliefs of any kind – is the more familiar figure of our age. It's maybe fitting, if not essential, that the modern setting evokes a cross between a sterile office building and Camp X-ray (while the wooden framework, chicken wire, splotchy paint, and cascade of opaque windows making up Annie Smart's set also suggest a degree of impermanence in the flimsy, makeshift quality of a military fort or bivouac).

Iago (Bruce McKenzie), the expert soldier passed up for peacetime promotion by his boss – the dignified and accomplished but utterly tractable Othello (Billy Eugene Jones), a Moorish general in Venetian employ – decides to turn the system of appearances holding together this hierarchical world against itself. In the process he proves the notion of an intrinsic connection between appearances and character to be a hollow sham.

This goes for race (or the complex European myths about dark skin that impinge on but are not necessarily central to Shakespeare's play) as well as marital fidelity (that damn handkerchief). But more generally, Iago wreaks havoc with the idea of reputation and honor. "I have lost the immortal part of myself, and what remains is bestial," the unwitting Cassio (Nicholas Pelczar) moans to the secret cause of his torment. "My reputation, Iago, my reputation!" Cassio is not the only one obsessed with reputation or susceptible to the idea that without it one is reduced to the level of a beast. In the world of the play, reputation acts as the outward sign and currency of social position. That's at least partly why Othello cries, "A horned man's a monster and a beast." A cuckold's horns are for public shaming. Only Iago, who early on confesses, "I am not what I am," stands well behind such surfaces, far enough to be free from their illusions and close enough to manipulate them at will.

Director Sean Daniels's production takes a few scenes to cohere, and even then there are some weak spots. None of the initial wooing, romantic or otherwise – whether between Othello and Desdemona, Othello and the Duke, or Iago and Roderigo, for example – seems very convincing. But as soon as Iago's power (which works "by wit and not by witchcraft") begins taking hold of Othello, things get more interesting and the principals grow stronger and more focused. Jones as Othello – who at first seems almost too restrained, too much the nice guy – grows to an altogether impressive stature, even as Iago's villainous mischief drags him down into a humiliating and incapacitating abyss of violent rage and agonizing jealousy, imbuing the role with all the gravity it warrants and demands.

McKenzie's brash Iago, meanwhile, manages multiple shades of reflection and guile beneath a gruff, almost blaring exterior. And Sarah Grace Wilson's Desdemona also gets stronger as the play progresses. The decidedly modern air she gives the character – a gregarious, even sassy, self-confidence – initially threatens to put her at odds with the play's action (there's little in the way of that spirit her father describes, "so still and quiet that her motion blushed at herself"), but it ends up nicely undergirding her more convincing emotional recoil in the face of Othello's ugly and unjust abuse. Their scenes together at that point are tense and gripping.

This growing intensity could be said to happen both through and despite Daniels's direction, however, which features some distracting choices throughout, including some awkward blocking. The modern military garb (by Meg Neville) also has its downside, having become so much the usual thing (including at Cal Shakes) that any contemporary resonance it might lend the play has to wrestle with a visual cliché. The use of loud modern rock transitions also feels too familiar, and that's probably why, here at least, the play gets pushy, especially when it goes as far as bleeding a distracting pop ballad into a dramatic climax. In an otherwise key and potent scene, such Hollywood-style sentiment is worse than unnecessary.

'Othello' runs through July 3. Tues.-Thurs., 7:30 p.m.; Fri.-Sat., 8 p.m. (also Jun/25, 2 p.m.); Sun., 4 p.m., Bruns Memorial Amphitheater, 100 Gateway, Orinda. $10-$55. (510) 548-9666, www.calshakes.org.