Themes unsettling, but actors convincing
“The Merchant of Venice,” one of Shakespeare’s most troubling plays, demands a clear interpretation and a strong director.
Gallery Players’ production of “Merchant” has both.
Director Mark Mann’s vision of the play’s world is one that is darkly cynical but still compassionate. There are no heroes or victims, just deeply flawed characters damping down their vulnerable emotions in order to manipulate and humiliate those around them.
Chief among these is Shylock (a commanding Matt Hermes), whose demand for the pound of flesh exacted in his contract with merchant Antonio (a convincingly arrogant Christopher Austin) sets the plot in motion.
Set up in opposition to him is Portia (Amanda Phillips), whose suitor Bassanio (a caddish John Connor) has persuaded Antonio to borrow money from Shylock to pay off his debts.
Intriguingly, and effectively, this Portia is a hardened woman. She is trapped by the game into which her dead father has forced her as a way of finding a husband. She soothes her spirits with power plays and heavy drinking with her debauched maid, Nerissa (Madison Wilson), whose frat-boy suitor, Gratiano (Patrick Clark), produces some of the most chilling examples of mindless prejudice and blatant scorn.
Even relatively minor characters offer disturbing variations on the theme of humiliation, with Launcelot (Aaron Shatz) heartlessly tricking his blind grandmother and Salarina (Lindsey Capritta) mocking Shylock with Valley Girl indifference.
All the characters speak Shakespeare’s lines with clarity, and Mann brings out the dark humor in many scenes, particularly those in which Portia’s suitors attempt to solve the puzzle her late father has set them.
This version of the play is set remarkably effectively in Venice during the 1960s. Both Pam Bloom-White’s flamboyant costumes and Jarod Wilson’s evocative sound design bring to mind Fellini’s grotesques and machinations of “The Godfather,” while a spare, two- level set makes the most of the stage.
This play, with its wrenching scenes of debasement and threatened violence, both physical and emotional, often isn’t easy to watch. But it offers a window into a version of hell in which power and money trump softer emotions every time.