A sense of urgency and resonance
I must confess that, having studied Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice at secondary school, I was left with precious little impression of the play in the intervening years, aside from some quotations which refuse to leave my brain. I’m glad to say that this particular interpretation of the play, ‘The Merchant of Venice 1936’, has changed this entirely. The touring show, direct from the RSC and the West End, is adapted by Brigid Larmour and Tracy-Ann Oberman (who also stars as the first female Shylock).
While the play’s trimmings – the largely bleak and drab set, with its recurring backdrop of London’s East End becoming evermore squalid throughout, and its strategic set pieces which communicate a world in very little – candles to signify Judaism, for example – are perfectly serviceable, the strength of this show is its writing and its actors.The remarkable cast succeeds in garnering more audience attention as the play goes on, not falling prey to that mid-Act 2 slump that can be so common – you could have heard a pin drop as Shylock advanced on Antonio with knife in hand. Amongst this excellent group, it’s the women that stand out the most: Evie Hargreaves’ maid Mary is by turn comedic and astonishingly cruel, Georgie Fellows’ is Portia a picture of calculated insouciance with powerful emotions tangibly simmering just below the surface, and Tracy-Ann Oberman as Shylock is the jewel of the play: she portrays a complexity of character that’s impossible to untangle, leaving the audience agonising over her steadfast focus on what is just, to the detriment of all else.
Setting the play in 1930s England, amidst the rise of Oswald Mosley’s Blackshirts, lends its themes of prejudice and the brutality of our fellow man a sense of urgency and resonance that can be felt as lacking in the 16th century original, which allows for a sense removal by way of hundreds of years. Discrimination, bigotry, antisemitism and violence were enacted so casually and so viscerally onstage that I felt uncomfortable. This play is quick to show that while you may laugh at someone’s antics one moment, they could be spitting on their neighbour the next – or, to paraphrase Shakespeare in another capacity, that one may smile and smile, and be a villain.
At the top of the show, the cast enters from the side of the auditorium, distributing wine amongst the audience as they celebrate Shabbat. The actors come and go via the crowd throughout – just before the end of the play Shylock wanders amid the auditorium’s front rows, looking entirely lost. This sense of connection between actors and audience further enables us to identify with the themes of this show and immerse us in the discomfort they arouse, and means that the show’s rather heartwarming ending – while abrupt, and arguably a bit misaligned with the tension of the rest of the play – very much has the desired effect of reminding us that, as Tracy-Ann (as herself) says, “we are stronger together”.
‘The Merchant of Venice 1936’ is showing at the Liverpool Playhouse until February 8th.
It was a great theater production with a nice slow burn