Essential message remains in economical Merchant of Venice production
What a treat. Shakespeare performed on the grounds of the Royal Botanical Gardens. Manicured paths bordered by nodding green plants guiding you to your seat.
Here and there, a splash of red from flowers that remind you this is summertime and you are in a garden. Once in a while, the call of a friendly bird from a stately old tree. How magical. (As long as you remember your DEET; these gardens have ferocious mosquitoes.)
Theatre, of course, began outdoors, in public places, sometimes in front of a cave or two.
Well, it’s a welcome return to yesterday to see Shakespeare’s “The Merchant of Venice,” framed by tree branches shot through by fairy lights.
On a pleasant summer night, you could imagine you were in Venice where the play takes place. We might even imagine it is 1596, save for the shunting of an errant train or two coming from the rail lands across the way.
Now, of course, none of this would matter a toss if the production by Tottering Biped Theatre wasn’t in tune with Shakespeare’s play. Happily it is. Though purists might wince at some of the cuts made in this economical version they didn’t bother me a bit. Everything essential is here. Yes, some characters have vanished. Somehow I didn’t miss them. And yes, there is far more comedy, particularly in the first act, than I remember seeing anywhere before. But the humour works well even if sometimes it does veer a tad over the top. And the imaginative staging by Trevor Copp offers 1960s style frieze -like images that give the play a stately quality.
I worried the comedy of the first half might encroach too much on the play’s darker and disturbing second half. It didn’t. The courtroom scene with Portia, Shylock, Bassanio and Antonia still brought chills that have nothing to do with the cool that descended over the gardens as darkness fell.
The play hit all its marks, with a balanced feel of rage and sympathy for Shylock who demanded his pound of flesh from Antonio, but was charged in the end with renouncing his Jewish religion to become a Christian. This moment still shocks and makes you wince.
Chris Reid tackled Shylock in a more controlled, low-key style than you might expect. There was none of that sinister marauding round the stage. Somehow it made the words all the more passionate.
Reid was matched by Alma Sarai’s sometimes stately, sometimes playful Portia. Her command of the stage in the trial scene was mesmerizing as she built from a soft, lyrical sensibility to a passionate rise of emotion that suggested utter assurance.
The entire company works to create a touching production. Michael Hannigan is a moving Antonio, Shawn DeSouza-Coelho a handsome Lorenzo. Jamie (Milay) Kasiama a strong Nerissa, Claudia Spadafora a touching Jessica, Jesse Horvath a comic Launcelot and Zach Parsons an earnest Bassanio. About the periphery, Isabel Starks adds elegantly wafting arms like some quiet angel watching over matters.
There are some inspired moments. When Horvath removes his shoes and turns his socks into hand puppets having a rapid-fire conversation with them it’s hilarious. When ships and shipwrecks are created from bodies moving in space it’s evocative.
There are a few cavils. It’s fine to have unit style costumes for the actors. That makes perfect sense in a production such as this, but do they have to look like limp rags untidily draped over actors’ bodies? At present, there’s insufficient lighting to create mood and ensure visibility. And yes, I know all this costs a great deal of money.
Sometimes too, the comedy goes too far with some actors having to work too hard to make it not look forced.
Parsons’ original music, created for the play, is a welcome asset and the simple set with its muslin drapes, sometimes fashioned as ship’s sails sometimes as salon curtains, are a fine example of the axiom less is more.
One thing is clear. This Biped production never shies away from Shakespeare’s darker intentions with “The Merchant of Venice.” Cruelty, bigotry, racial and religious discrimination, they’re all there. If sometimes these things are cloaked in overt comedy they still come across as deeply disturbing. And isn’t that the intention?
The play hit all its marks, with a balanced feel of rage and sympathy for Shylock who demanded his pound of flesh from Antonio…