The Merchant of Venice
The Merchant of Venice
By William Shakespeare
Directed by Jim Helsinger
Starring Joe Vincent, Marni Penning, Steven Patterson, Armistead Johnson
Orlando Shakespeare Festival, Orlando Fl</strong>
William Shakespeare’s nastiest play takes on a curious bipolar temper in this sparkling production. Technically a comedy as there are no bodies left on stage and all the romances wrapped up successfully, the show feels like a tragedy, as Shylock (Joe Vincent) loses everything including his racial identity. His Christian neighbors spit at him, call him names, and then demand his financial services and the right to set terms. When they default and he insists on the same legal privileges they receive, he’s out manuvered by some last minute adjustments of the legal system.
The story is simple enough by Elizabethan standards – the marriage of Portia (Penning) and Bassanio (Johnson) requires some spending cash to proceed, but he hasn’t two groats to rub together. His friend and best no-doc mortgage banker Antonio (Patterson) has all his cash some can’t-lose shipping expeditions. Now they’re washed up on the rocks and they both need the Jew Shylock to keep going. The boys are rather nasty about the whole transaction, but Shylock cuts him them a high risk deal – no interest for 3 months but default requires flesh and blood. Antonio agrees with the confidence of a Jim Cramer before John Stewart got hold of him and the results are about he same – the money ain’t forthcoming, and the borrowers get off scot-free on some technicality of the law. Shylock, the only responsible one on stage get the screw job – his daughter Jessica (Brittney Rentschler) runs off Lorenzo (Andrew Knight), another bad credit risk, and she takes daddy’s pension plan. It’s not unlike the present financial situations – the deadbeats get rescued, the responsible pick up the charges, and they don’t even get to golf at the executive country club.
The Shylock scenes are dark and disturbing. Solanio (Michael Beaman) and Salerio (Kyle Crowder) harass Shylock with the inbred bitterness of any Upper Peninsula White Supremacist, and even when dour Antonio parades his Christian Goodness in front of Shylock, you know he has no intention of changing his attitude toward and Jew, no matter what is done in his favor. Countering this dark and essential element of the story are some over-the-top comedy segments where Portia gets around some bizarre restrictions on whom she marries. They loved this stuff half a millennia ago – her suitor must do nothing more than pick the right metal box to win her and her fortune. Never mind the whole falling love thing, some of these characters shouldn’t be allowed to run a carnival pitch, much less and estate. Israel Scott is the Prince of Morocco, and Nathan Gregory is the price of Aragon, and both go beyond comedy into Monty Python silliness. More reserved is Anne Herring as Nerissa with her schoolmarm charm and responsible tutor air, but she tosses that aside as soon as a pair of suitable guys show up. No point just one of them getting married, is there?
What might be the weakest element of the show is Portia’s Courtroom scene. After protesting and demonstrating she has only an inexperienced girl’s knowledge of the world, she pulls off a solid and surprising victory over Shylock. Problem is, she spends the first half of the argument begging for Shylock to reconsider and take a cash deal, then with no real foreshadowing she produces the “no blood, and exactly one pound plus or minus zero” argument. It’s clever, but hard to swallow.
With all that out of the way, the production has a typically brilliant set by Bob Phillips, nice set changes with masked men moving furniture, and the sort of lighting by Bert Scott that we’ve come to expect in the Margeson Theater. The warts are relatively minor, and the parallels with today’s financial crisis unmistakable.
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