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CurtainUp The Internet Theater Magazine of Reviews, Features,
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A CurtainUp Review
The Globe's Merchant of Venice In An All Too Brief Stop At The Lincoln Center Festival
By Elyse Sommer
But the Bard's enduring popularity doesn't mean a year can't easily go by without Curtainup covering new interpretations of his trickier and harder to stage plays. While we've reviewed the play more than a dozen times, that doesn't come near the number of our encounters with Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Twelfth Night and other top favorites. That's why this year might well be remembered for our covering not one but three productions of his trickiest to interpret and stage plays, The Merchant of Venice. This trio of new versions began last January with a drastically streamlined and different Sephardic Merchant at New York's Center for Jewish History embellished with Ladino songs that breathed Jewish authenticity and poetic fervor into the story. Though whittled down to seven characters and 90 minutes without intermission, it managed to deliver the essential moral allegory and nearly all the most famous speeches. Most recently, Shakespeare & Company has mounted an updated version of its Merchant at its Tina Packer Theater. Chesley Plemmons, who like me was deeply moved by the ( 2002 Outdoor production found the current version — again starring Jonathan Epstein and helmed by the Company's founder Tina Packer — even richer and deeper. While New Yorkers can combine a trip to the Berkshires with catching the excellent Merchant. . . revival in Lenox until August 21st, The Old Globe's striking touring production directed by Jonathan Munby and with Jonathan Pryce as memorably moving Shylock has made an all too brief 7-performance stopover as part the Lincoln Center Festival. Therefore, unless you were lucky enough, like me, to snag a ticket, this review comes too late to urge you to see it . . . unless you live in DC Chicago where the company will make its its last U.S. stops before heading to China and back to London.
I can't recall a more harrowing yet stirring finale in which we see Phoebe Price's Jessica as traumatized by the aftermath of abandoning her faith and her father, as the father is by the baptism forced on him by the my-religion-first society he lives in. Pryce's agonized moans as he endures each step of the ritual is almost too painful to watch.
Designer Mike Britton has created a set that effectively segues between Venice and the Belmont home of the heiress Portia with minimal props. (The finely detailed costumes more than make up for the minimalism in that department). The Venice scenes play out against a brick wall wth a door and a balcony-like window that occasionally opens.
While Rachel Pickup is a lovely and elegant Portia, her performance is not as richly nuanced as Phoeobe Pryce's Jessica. While I'm quibbling, I found the way Antonio (Dominic Matham) is strapped to a cross-like bar for Shylock to extract his pound of flesh too obvious a visual metaphor to explain the history of anti-Semitism based on images of Jews as Christ killers. On the other hand, the way the often referred to erotic undercurrents between Bassamio (Dan Fredenburgh) and Antonoio are forcefully handled in a brief, wordless scene that underscores that people Bassiano reject any type of outsider. Perhaps the all too valid parallels of this troublesome play's issues to the world we live in, accounts for this season's multiple re-interpretations. |
Search CurtainUp in the box below PRODUCTION NOTES The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare Director: Jonathan Munby Cast (alphabetical order): Stefan Adegbola (Launcelot Gobbo), Andy Apollo (Lorenzo), Raj Bajaj( Solanio), Jonothan Coy (Gratiano), Dan Fredenburgh (Bassanio),Michael Hadley (Duke of Venice/Tubal),Colin Haigh(Balthasar), John Hastings (Ensemble), Christopher Logan (Arragon), Dominic Matham (Antonio), Brian Martin (Salarino), Rachel Pickup (Portia), Jonathan Pryce (Shylock), Phoebe Pryce (Jessica, Giles Terera (Morocco), Meghan Tyler (Ensemble) Musicians: Jeremy Avis, Dan Pritchard, arry Napiier, Lea Cornthwaite Designer: Mike Britton Composer: Jules Maxwell Choreographer: Lucy Hind Fight Director:Kara Waters Rose Theater, Jazz at Lincoln Center Broadway at West 60th Street, 5th floor 7 performances, from 7/20/16; closing 7/24/16 with the production moving on to DC, Chicago and overseas, including China. Feature by Elyse Sommer based on 7/23/16 matinee REVIEW FEEDBACK Highlight one of the responses below and click "copy" or"CTRL+C"
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