Despite a disappointing opening production and serious problems with ailing artists’ requiring replacement, Antoni Cimolino’s first season as Stratford’s Artistic Director has been one of the strongest and most impressive in this great theater center’s history. Having earlier directed a landmark-wonderful revival of Schiller’s Mary Stuart during the opening week, Cimolino ended this season’s new productions with an absolutely splendid revival of William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice– smartly designed and lighted and beautifully performed.
Staff and audience members were and are worried about Stratford’s great and beloved actor/director Brian Bedford, whose illness required him to leave the role of Shylock in this production. But director Cimolino quoted Bedford’s comment that the choice of veteran actor Scott Wentworth is “inspired”; and Wentworth – already recipient of nothing but critical raves for his Tevya in this season’s Fiddler on the Roof – is also certainly brilliant as Shylock, an overwhelmingly contrasting, classic Jewish role. I’m tempted to jokingly lament that he couldn’t also play Fagin in Oliver! this summer and own the whole category.
But Shakespeare’s challenging and beautiful play is far too complex to be dominated by even that one great character. It is also a story of a remarkable, brilliant and beautiful woman, Portia, whose choice from several courtships offers cherished and beloved commentary on the nature of romantic love. And it is Portia’s voice that articulates the play’s enduring insights into justice and “the quality of mercy.”
Then there are the plots and subplots indicated by the title: From Antonio and his friends we learn much about commerce and its values and morality, as well as another love – that of friendship and obligation. But Shylock, though a formidable opponent and a cruel and stingy man, is also an understandably furious victim of lifelong persecution. We see him mocked and persecuted for what he loves: his Jewish friends, his religion, his daughter, and his hard-earned wealth and comforts – all of which he eloquently defends, and each of which he is forced to lose at the joyful conclusion celebrated by Portia’s and Antonio’s friends. And don’t we celebrate his losses also?
Antoni Cimolino’s subtly masterful direction perfectly balances Merchant’s many themes and elements. The large cast is full of fine actors able to give the varied roles full value. Newcomer Antoine Yared, for instance, flounces through the Prince of Arragon’s trial for the hand of Portia and, rejected, makes such a grand, haughty departure that he wins loud laughter and applause on his exit. Tyrell Crews, another actor making his Stratford debut, is more touching than most I’ve seen as Bassanio, Antonio’s indebted young friend; and he’s more impish as well as affectionate as Portia’s lover.
Jonathan Goad, a strong leading man, is here very funny as Bassanio’s unruly friend Gratiano, and playfully amorous as lover to Nerissa, Portia’s maid. Tyrone Savage is a sensitive, handsome young Lorenzo, Bassanio’s friend and trustworthy suitor to Shylock’s rebellious daughter, Jessica.
I feel that Sara Farb’s Jessica, Shylock’s strictly guarded daughter, gains dignity and vulnerability toward the end, but she seems oddly immature and petulant when we first meet her.
The three loving couples are nicely differentiated. Portia and Bassanio have the most playful banter en route to surrendering to each other. Nerissa and Gratiano are bawdier and more consistently comic. And Jessica and Lorenzo are wary but trust in their love.
Tom McCamus uses his extraordinary, commanding voice and leading-man presence to make his noble, generous Antonio an obvious figure of leadership but plays Antonio (the title role) with rather subtle understatement – rather removed from his companions’ partying fun and passionate partisanship in the courtroom.
Michelle Giroux’s Portia is interestingly softer, younger-looking, and more glamorous in her earlier scenes as mistress of her estate in Belmont and object of the games of courtship than when she returns after the trial. And dressed as a man in court, she really does look like another person and speaks in a lower tone and more sober delivery rather than attempting to sound like a man. Sophia Walker’s transformation is equally effective but, like her female self in the scenes at Belmont, more playful and comic as the sexy Nerissa than is the dignified Portia.
And then there’s Scott Wentworth’s Shylock. He manages a consistent motivation of pride in his accomplishments and possessions and religious zeal, while displaying shrewd intellect, and defensive posture. He shifts from fierce and unyielding authoritarianism to affection with his daughter, from fury at being opposed to wheedling to avoid harm. He never loses dignity even when subjected to indignities, and he seems more than capable, intelligent, and rational. But when he is baited and defeated this Shylock is not pitiable but a picture of malignant hatred, a dangerous man broken and heartbroken. His is an immense performance, and properly, I think, a characterization that we uncomfortably don’t know how to deal with. So, of course, we take the easy way out, and applaud.
