The Merchant of Venice is a notoriously difficult play, primarily because it presents a giant, blazing, anti-semitic obstacle to our unfettered bardolatry. As the compassionate, tolerant, cosmopolitan, contemporary inheritors of the Western literary tradition, it is difficult to reconcile our opinion of Shakespeare as the paragon of tolerance and empathy, with this particular work of his. This is a shame - as much as we think of Shakespeare as timeless, he was very much invested in the cultures and mores of his time, and much of his success was owing to his ability to create work that appealed across the spectrum of early modern society, from Queen Elizabeth to the Globe groundlings. Judaism was not openly practiced in Shakespeare's London, and was a subject of great curiosity. Indeed, Phillip Henslowe's diary (which records by day all of the plays performed at the Rose theatre, how much they earned, and a great many other things besides) reflects this societal curiosity through the successive programming of a number of plays with Jewish villains - The Merchant of Venice, Marlowe's The Jew of Malta, and a number of lost plays that appear to touch on similar themes. Contemporary productions of The Merchant of Venice can get bogged down in a bleeding-heart pathos for Shylock that obscures the delightful tone of a great deal of the play. The great strength of Anne-Louise Sarks' production for Bell Shakespeare is that is doesn't shy away from lightness and joy, whilst at the same time pointing out the cruelty and casual intolerance of the play.
This production was beautifully and simply staged in the Fairfax theatre, in a way that embraced a sense of theatricality. The ensemble was onstage for the duration of the show, sitting on curved benches around the stage or changing costumes off to the side. This allowed Sarks to create potent theatrical images that added complexity and nuance to the tone of the show - the triumphant and joyous fifth act becomes undercut with sobriety when a devastated Shylock, having been cruelly and forcibly converted to Christianity, is sitting on stage with his head in his hands. Falling leaves - yellow in the first act and black in the fifth, evoked a sense of suspension and poignancy that added a beautiful melancholy emotional resonance to the show.
The performances were strong across the ensemble, the most culturally diverse I have seen in a Shakespeare play for quite a while. As Shylock, Mitchell Butel made a compelling case for a man whose empathy has been worn away by the collective weight of thousands of daily aggressions and discriminations. Portia and Nerissa, Jessica Tovey and Catherine Davies, were bold and dynamic in their performances, and didn't shy away from some of the more problematic elements of their characters - Portia's casual racism towards one of her suitors, their vindictive delight in finding the legal loophole that saves Antonio - these moments were committed to as much as the more enjoyable proto-feminist ones. Perhaps the most effective characterisation however was that of the young men and Antonio as absurdly privileged, idle men of leisure. Their anti-semitism was not cruelty for its own sake, but a self-congratulatory ritual of discrimination that bound them together, in much the same way that young Australian men can bond over a collective, ingrained, casual misogyny. The audience laughs at their antics, but we are also deeply uncomfortable.
This ability to maintain dramaturgical coherence whilst navigating the tonal shifts between humour and pathos is, to my mind, the greatest strength of this production. At no point does it indulge in the liberalism of its interpretation - the audience wish for Shylock to show mercy as much as Portia does - but it also doesn't let the play get away with its own inherent discrimination uncriticised. Further to this, Sarks' production allows the audience to laugh at a play that is, at many points, extremely funny. In a cultural climate where this tonal and interpretive multiplicity can be seen as too complex for audiences, it is a balanced, elegant, and refreshingly nuanced production. It performs christian rituals - the play begins with everyone except Shylock and Jessica fervently reciting the Our Father - as well as Jewish ones, although I questioned whether or not the solitary mysticism of Shylock's prayers ended up 'othering' the rituals of Judaism rather than humanising them. The last moments of the play magnificently encapsulate the entwined joy and melancholy that underpin the entire show.
This is a strong and very beautiful show, the more beautiful for its wholehearted embrace of theatricality and storytelling. Unlike the MTC's profoundly disappointing recent production of Macbeth, which desperately and doggedly tried to not be theatre in favour of becoming a first-person shooter game crossed with a Die Hard film, The Merchant of Venice embraced what it is to perform and share a story with an audience. It revelled in the intimacy of the theatrical experience, the nuance and humanity of storytelling, and the tonal complexities that shape almost every moment of our lives. Following its run in Melbourne, this show will continue an enormous tour around Australia. Audiences who see it will leave the theatre much the richer for the experience.