Of Rings, Rats, Ducats and Cell Phones -- PAE's Merchant of Venice

Review of Portland Actors Ensemble's Merchant of Venice (6, 12 July 2013)

 

Oh, Merchant of Venice. It’s a great play, full of ups and downs, drama and humor, love and revenge… and open to so many misinterpretations and pitfalls. How are we supposed to deal with the anti-Semitism? Was Shakespeare anti-Semitic to have written something like this? Was that just the culture of Shakespeare’s age? What about the bromance between Antonio and Bassanio? Is it anything more? And suddenly you’re mired in a bog of politically correct ways to play it, with the sensibilities of today taking center stage instead of the plot and story itself.

Don’t get me wrong – I love the Merchant of Venice. But I always approach productions of it with trepidation and concern that Shakespeare’s story will somehow get lost amidst the clamor of what people think it should be.

I shouldn’t have worried about Portland Actors Ensemble’s production. (I should never worry about their productions, since I’ve been going regularly for more than 10 years and have yet to see one I didn’t like!) Director Bruce Hostetler and his stellar cast have woven the many seemingly conflicting elements of the plot together into a beautiful, seamless story that doesn’t jar where it’s not supposed to, that makes you walk away thinking about deeper things than social prejudice.

One key to understanding this play is recognizing that Shylock is a villain. He is also a Jew, but I believe that was more of a necessary plot device for Shakespeare than any statement about race. In order for his plot to work, Shakespeare needed a money lender to be the baddie. In today’s world, we have many options for that kind of role – loan sharks, banks, the Mafia – but in Shakespeare’s day if you wanted to borrow money, you went to a Jew. Simple as that. James Peck does a masterful job at reminding us that Shylock is not a nice guy. He gloats. He grumbles. He laughs at Antonio’s need. He cares more about his money than he does about his daughter, Jessica (as brilliantly shown when he kisses Jessica goodbye… and then comes back to kiss the briefcase of money goodbye). Even in some of the more “sincere” speeches about how Jews are people, too, Peck’s delivery reminded us where it’s all going – Jews are people, too, and therefore can be vindictive and vengeful and evil.

Another reminder that Shakespeare doesn’t have it in for all Jews is the character of Tubal – Shylock’s associate. Tubal is actually the first one to bring up the idea of mercy in the trial scene. And when Shylock pays no attention to him, Tubal (Enrique Andrade) refused to have anything more to do with him. Though he didn’t say anything, Andrade made it perfectly clear that Tubal does not condone his fellow Jew’s actions and that not all Jews are cut out of the same cloth. Jews are people, too, which means they don’t fit into boxes and won’t be tidily categorized… even in a Shakespeare play that leans fairly heavily on stereotypes.

For a play that we tend to think of as being all about justice and law, there’s an awful lot of romance going on almost constantly. Lorenzo (Benjamin Newman) and Jessica (Megan Chambers) win the Most Adorkably Sweet Couple Award for long, awkward silences and many blushingly sweet looks. Gratiano (Benjamin Sheppard) and Nerissa (Elizabeth Gibbs) win the Most Likely to Argue Award for bringing together two characters with plenty of spice and spunk. But the Most Unusual Couple Award has to go to Salanio (Clinton Clark) and his cell phone – a delightfully modern device that rendered many an info dump and long monologue advancing the plot actually entertaining and fun to watch.

Let’s not forget Bassanio (Sam Burns) and Portia (Jenny Newbry) though. Burns’s Bassanio is earnest and a good friend and slightly more mature than his sidekicks Gratiano and Salanio, but is still impulsive and has absolutely no business sense whatsoever. When things go skew-whiff, Bassanio is a loyal if somewhat ineffectual helper. He’s also delightfully naïve and totally smitten with Portia.  Newbry’s Portia provides a good counter to this. She’s 100 percent girl and very much in love with Bassanio, but you can tell she’s the brains behind most of what goes on. She bats her eyelashes and turns on the charms to get her unwelcome suitors the Prince of Morocco (Alistair Morley Jaques) and the Prince of Aragon (Enrique Andrade) to pick the wrong boxes. And she makes plans to help Antonio when all Bassanio can think of is being there with him. Together they are lovely.

I could wax eloquent about so many things… but time and space prevent me. I’ll only mention Launcelot Gobbo (Michael Kutner) and Old Gobbo (Alastair Morley Jaques) as wonderful examples of Shakespeare’s Clowns. Kutner’s version of Launcelot’s shoulder angel and shoulder devil had me in stitches… and his Brando impersonation was great! And to whoever thought up the Rats-on-a-Stick… disgustingly brilliant. ;-)

Through all this I discovered a theme that I hadn’t seen before, one that I need to think about more and unpack later – the letter of the law vs. the spirit. It’s there in the courtroom scene… it’s there in the lottery for Portia’s hand in marriage… it’s there in the dispute about what really happened to the rings… and it’s a good reminder of what’s really important in life. But that’s a discussion for another time.

For now… Merchant runs until July 20^th. It’s definitely worth the watch, if you can make it. Details at portlandactors.org.

A Year of Shakespeare

Looks like I need to do some dusting in here. I've been a little low on Shakespeare lately. But to fix that, I've got a plan for 2013: Read one Shakespeare play each month. It's not much... but it's a start. I've made a list -- originally this was going to be a reading / discussion group, but logistics haven't fallen into place yet. So I thought I'd just post my list, and anyone who was vaguely interested might read along with me.

If I'm diligent, I might post "things to look for while reading" for each play.

So here's my reading list. I realize that January is gone... but maybe you can sneak Macbeth into the beginning of February.


January              Macbeth                                              
February            The Taming of the Shrew
March                King Lear
April                  The Winter’s Tale
May                   Merchant of Venice
June                   Cymbeline
July                    Romeo and Juliet
August               As You Like It
September         Troilus and Cressida
October              Julius Caesar
November          A Midsummer Night’s Dream
December          Twelfth Night

If you are interested in reading along and maybe finding a way to discuss these (even with comments on here or via email?), leave me a note. By the way, a lot of these are ones happening in the Portland area this Spring / Summer (or in Ashland)... and I've tried to set it up so that you can read the play before going to see it. 

One Reason I Love Shakespeare

I had a discussion with some of my students last week about why one should study Shakespeare. One asked for clarification in an email later, which gave me the chance to write this:

Shakespeare understood human nature -- what makes us tick -- and he wrote about it so well, that being familiar with his characters helps me understand the people around me. That's why his plays have survived 400+ years -- because deep down the people in the plays are the same people that we live with, that we work with, that we meet on the street or at the library.

Macbeth isn't really a story about witches -- it's a story about a man with ambitions and with a wife who pushes him to "succeed" no matter what it takes. He could be an executive, trying to be CEO of a Fortune 500 company, or a Senator aiming for the Presidency. And we see people like that in the news all the time.

Hamlet isn't just an emo kid who is commissioned by his father's ghost to revenge his (the father's) murder. Hamlet is a scholar, pushed into a world of action. But he's a thinker... and he finds himself paralyzed by thought. The "To be or not to be" soliloquy isn't about suicide -- it's about how thinking too much about which course of action we should take ends up keeping us from taking any action. I know people who are Hamlets in this sense -- they think and consider all the options and on and on and on... and things just don't ever get done around them... because it's always think first and make sure you've thought about it all.... Knowing Hamlet helps me realize that that's the way they think, and I can relate to them better because I've seen how Hamlet reacts when he's pushed into action (it doesn't go well).

Merchant of Venice is a story of the kind of loyalty you want in your friends -- and how important it is that your spouse and your friends get along, too. Merchant is such a beautiful story of friendship... it's almost a shame that it's clouded over with controversy about anti-Semitism (which isn't really in there... but a lot of people would debate that one).

Othello and Much Ado About Nothing are both warnings against believing everything you hear -- the tragedy (Othello) shows the horrible, horrible consequences, and the comedy (Much Ado) shows in what a tangled mess you can put yourselves and others if you don't verify rumors and accusations. And in this day and age where people are so quick to believe anything they read on the Internet, we could all use that reminder more often.

Henry IV is a coming of age story -- only here you have a dissolute prince who is having to deal with the consequences of his "sewing his wild oats" and become the kind of man he needs to be in order to be a good king. Those consequences (including having to abandon old friends and turn your back on the people who were closest to you) are quite painful and not easily dealt with. So this teaches me a couple things: (1) don't go there in the first place (personally), and (2) don't be quick to judge those who are having to clean up their act.


This is obviously just a smattering of examples. For the moment I've left out Lear, Julius Caesar, As You Like It, Twelfth Night, The Tempest and a whole passel of others. And Shakespeare isn't the only one who knows human nature and who expresses it in memorable ways. The reason he is one of the best, though, is that he created a massive cast of characters... so he has a wide range to explore. Not many people have that opportunity.

So that's one reason I love Shakespeare. One of many. What about you? Why do you love him?