The Merchant of Venice

By David Walters

As you walk into The Merchant of Venice (originally entitled The most excellent historie of the Merchant of Venice with the exxtreame cruelitie of Shylocke the Jewe) now playing at Classic Stage Company, you realize after a few minutes that you have become a member of the television studio audience here to see cable-access’s own The Antonio Show!!!! A show filled with Fun, Romance, and Comedy (“Why are chickens afraid of Shakespeare? Well, you’d be scared too, if he wanted to “MURDER most FOWL!”) as they present, for the studio audience and those at home, their The Play That Goes Wrong version of William Shakespeare‘s classic antisemitic play. Actors have left, crew have revolted, things aren’t ready, but the show must go on, 5-4-3-2-1, and cue.

Your host for the evening, Antonio (a charismatic T.R. Knight), begins in a talk-show format, interviewing puppets and other actors, to lay out where we’re at. We’re in Venice ensconced in the world of traders that send out ships around the world to both buy and sell goods. If all works out, an initial investment can be recouped six fold+. But if it doesn’t, you’re busted.

In need of funds for a new venture, upstanding member of the community, Antonio, comes to usurer Shylock to borrow. Shylock, not being part of the inner circle, is surprised at the request and in the terms of the contract, adds a clause that if the debt is not paid by a certain date, he may extract an actual pound of Antonio’s flesh. Pretty harsh. Antonio laughs at the request – thinking his ship will come in – and signs. Of course, the ship doesn’t come in and we’re headed to crash on the rocks and the tragic end of the play.

In betweenst this plot is the love, lust, and romance of the citizens of Venice, the unicorns, superheros, bubble machines, rap songs, x-rated puppets, and haunting renditions of Stand By Me, and Sometimes When We Touch (beautifully sung by Noah Pacht).

Richard Topol, as Shylock, brings the personal pain of the character to the forefront, the loneliness, the degradation, and the spit-upon. He begins the play as an average business man-among-many and is quickly transformed by the other characters and costumed in a Dracula cape, spiked vampire teeth, large Groucho nose and glasses, and a blood stained shirt. He conforms to their wishes and goes all out in giving them what they want. Their making of him in their image grants them, in essence, what they deserve come the end of the play. Do we have input in the creation of our own enemies?

Director Igor Golyak has created a Merchant of Venice reflective of our modern time, busy, entertaining, titillating, short on attention span, flippant, with the sense-of-it-all just below the surface

At times this carnival atmosphere is so bright and shiny, it becomes a distraction and the edifice of frivolity has to be broken in order to fit-in the sidebar of the seriousness of this play.

Shakespeare is so revered today because his work is so universal, transcending eras as it speaks of the human condition. And we absolutely need to be spoken to. This adaptation is both entertaining and poignant in its morality.

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