Merchant Of Venice

By: William Shakespeare

Director: Richard Rose

Stratford Festival Of Canada

Runs: May 5^th to October 27

Festival Theatre

3 ½ Stars

Reviewed By: Kindah Mardam Bey

Open for serious debate this year is The Stratford Festival Of Canada’s production of Shakespeare’s most controversial play - The Merchant Of Venice. Such a volatile play that is open for debate should be discussed passionately; perhaps director Richard Rose had method to his madness.

The Merchant Of Venice, believe it or not, is a comedy. The story of Bassanio who loves Portia, a rich heiress in a far away land (Belmont) loans money through his friend Antonio, from Shylock a local Jewish merchant, to get Portia’s hand. Shylock stipulates that if the debt is not returned a pound of Antonio’s flesh will be owed to him. Boy (Bassanio) wins girl (Portia) and a few complications lead to Antonio owing Shylock the pound of flesh in a court of law. The court room scene is delicious to watch, particularly with a nice Chianti….

So picture this….the stage lights go up and a storm of actors dressed in suits come barrelling towards the stage with pig masks on the front of their heads and on the back of their heads are white ‘human’ masks. Overhead is belting club music and a quasi dance-ritual takes place centre stage. Primal techno? Highly stylized and thematically fitting, I somehow feel like I’ve entered the first rung of Dante’s Inferno. It is then that I notice the roasted suckling pig on the grand dinner table has a pig mask on also, and I chuckle. The men take off their masks and Act One Scene One commences.

As part of the stylized theme, the men are mostly draped in suits and yet the ladies costumes seem to teeter between Elizabethan funk and tailored dogma. The costumes were intended to display that Venice was at a crossroads and the clothing signifies old and new values converging, but what was intended to be diversity really seemed to end up in a thrift shop hodge podge. What fashion victim decided to put Gareth Potter as Gratiano, in a pair of gold velvet pants and a tattered hoodie? In any case, whether it be the costumes, the masks, the club music, I had to ask myself does this work? Cohesively, this production’s interpretation of themes seemed more lost in translation on the audience than the sixteenth century dialogue.

Much of the cast who are in Merchant Of Venice walk the stage in King Lear in alternating days. The performances in Lear were strong and collectively dynamic, but seemed to fall short all too often in Merchant. Mind you, I often consider it a great benefit for a production when the director is on stage night after night with the rest of the cast, which was the case in Lear but not Merchant. An additional performer to The Merchant of Venice that was not in Lear is Graham Greene. From Dances With Wolves to Transamerica, Greene has been a favourite film actor of mine and it was a delight to see him take centre stage as Shylock. Greene put in a strong performance, if not subtle at times, but definitely conveying the resolve to revenge that Shylock emanates in caricature.

Additional strong performances were displayed by Scott Wentworth as Antonio, whose exquisite voice for stage can be so captivating. I am continually enamoured with Sara Topham’s lady like performances that holds Audrey Hepburn elegance in each gesture and tone; this time she was Shylock’s sadly mislead daughter Jessica. Lest we forget that The Merchant Of Venice is a comedy after all, and much humour was to be showcased by Severn Thompson as Portia desperate to marry the man of her own choosing, Portia’s Igor type butler, Stephano played by Graham Harley, and Gareth Potter’s version of Gratiano’s loose-lipped sidekick to Sean Arbuckle’s Bassanio made the last twenty minutes of the play a delight to watch.

With such estimable performers and strong storyline, I felt what was lacking in this production of the Merchant Of Venice may lie in the palm of the director’s hand and vision. Of course, this is open for debate.