The Merchant of Venice

by William Shakespeare, directed by Paul Barnes
Great River Shakespeare Festival (July 3, 2008)

“Unsettling” was the word that both cast and audience kept using in the post production conversation to describe The Merchant of Venice after Thursday’s performance at the Great River Shakespeare Festival. The plot line that follows the Jewish moneylender Shylock took up most of the conversation. Jonathan Gillard Daly’s portrayal of Shylock is polarizing in the story and mesmerizing to the audience. Daly takes Shakespeare’s caricature of a Jew—godless, money-grubbing miser—and dominates the scenes that he is in. The performance is reminiscent of Daly’s powerful Richard III, but rather than being driven by Richard’s lust for power, Shylock seeks only a single revenge to help ease the pain of a lifetime of slander and injustice.

The evidence of this anti-Semitic slander is abundant, leaving it hard to find a hero amongst the characters the audience is meant to root for. We want Antonio (the merchant of the title, played by Michael Fitzpatrick) to clear his debts, yet his refusal to see Shylock as human and his harsh “mercy” at the end of the play taint our enthusiasm for him and his friends. We are certainly relieved at the turn of events that save Antonio, but we aren’t exactly cheering along with the actors on stage.

A Jew would have been rare in Shakespeare’s London, perhaps as exotic as a Prince from Morocco. So one would guess that Shakespeare’s audience would not have had much reason to question the evil caricature of Shylock, and it likely did cheer his final humiliation. But the play also offers evidence that Shakespeare didn’t believe the black and white, Christian and Jew dichotomy he created. In a well known speech, Shylock proclaims his humanity: “If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?” (III.i.64-66). And in several places in the play, Shakespeare uses Shylock to highlight the questionable actions and values of Christians. But even with these devices at work, the anti-Semitism is dominant. Director Paul Barnes’ decision to leave the text unaltered, to not soften the racism to suit the times, certainly demonstrates his respect of the intelligence of GRSF’s audience. But ironically, leaving the text alone means that we are seeing a significantly different play than Shakespeare’s original audience.

Jonathan Gillard Daly as Shylock in the GRSF production of The Merchant of Venice. (Photo: GRSF)

Another example of this not-so-subtle racism comes in another plot line, where suitors to the rich and beautiful Portia must pass a lottery to win her hand. Before Bassanio (Antonio’s good friend, played by Zachary Michael Fine) arrives to try his luck, two other suitors—The Prince of Morocco (Donte Fitzgerald) and the Prince of Aragon (Bob Fairbrook)—try theirs. These two scenes provide comic relief as both suitors, decked out in culturally exaggerated costumes, speech, movements, and actions, fall prey to their own vanity. But Portia’s comment upon the departure of the saddened Prince of Morocco changes the audience’s perspective of a brilliantly written comedy sketch.

A gentle riddance. Draw the curtains, go.
Let all of his complexion choose me so. (II.vii.78-79)

This comment forces a contemporary audience to wonder if its own relief and amusement over Morocco’s failed choice was, after all, based on race. Again Barnes doesn’t let us off the hook; we have to wrestle with the uncertainty inherent in the text.

Unsettling can also be used to describe the final plot development which is clearly intended as humorous. Portia (played by Tarah Flanagan) and her maid (Carla Noack), disguised as men, have induced their new husbands to offer their respective wedding rings as tokens of appreciation for having saved Antonio. When the men return, the women chide the men for so easily parting with their rings. While the trick is clearly funny, it is also clearly manipulative. Portia uses the opportunity to place separation between her new husband Bassanio and his best friend Antonio, and in a sense, to change the ground rules for their marriage. Portia initially sets the ground rules for their marriage in a more traditional manor just after Bassanio has passed the lottery:

Myself, and what is mine, to you and yours
Is now converted. But now I was the lord
Of this fair mansion, master of my servants,
Queen o’er myself, and even now, but now,
This house, these servants, and this same myself
Are yours—my lord’s!—I give them with this ring,
Which when you part from, lose, or give away,
Let it presage the ruin of your love,
And be my vantage to exclaim on you. (III.ii.166-174)

Even before the fiasco with the ring, Portia has shown little willingness to submit or even share power with her new husband. While freely giving over her purse to Bassanio, she continues to direct her servants and orchestrates the events that will resolve the play. But it would be hard to find fault with Portia if she is not yet willing to give over her house to Bassanio—Bassanio has done little to prove that he deserves it. He has spent his youth flitting from one adventure to another, exhausting his own fortune and borrowing heavily from his friends. In the play, he is finally choosing to get serious and take responsibility for his debts. His responsible plan: borrow more money and play a lottery to win a wealthy heiress.

The production itself seems top notch. The lighting and staging are both simple and elegant, helping the audience move from the streets of Venice to the court of Belmont to the Venetian courtroom. The three young attendants to Portia (Orion McCullough-Smith, Christopher Bernard, and Mitchell Essar) sing a lovely passage put to music by Daniel Kallman. The acting certainly meets the high quality that we’ve come to expect from the festival. Along with Jonathan Gillard Daly as Shylock, Tarah Flanagan’s Portia controls both the court and her home of Belmont, and Chris Mixon plays a memorable Gratiano, the type of friend you’d rather didn’t come along when meeting your future spouse. Doug Scholz-Carlson seems to have taken over the role of company fool, and here he does a particularly nice job fooling with words as Lancelot Gobbo.

The Great River Shakespeare Festival’s The Merchant of Venice is certainly more thought provoking than satisfying. While a comedy—it abounds in weddings—the humor is often overshadowed by the many unsettling aspects of the play itself. And rather than simply transport an audience to a romantic Venice, the play forces us to explore our own experiences with racism. There may not be another way to honestly play The Merchant of Venice.

The Merchant of Venice plays in reperatory with The Taming of the Shrew through July 27.
Visit the Great River Shakespeare Festival for schedules and tickets: grsf.org