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Review: The Merchant of Venice

★★★☆☆

This classical Shakespearian performance holds a lot of promise but also leaves much to be desired. The promise stands in the guise of strong talent especially from the female leads of Portia, Maureen Lenker, and Nerissa, Dina Tsesarsky. Their grasp of Elizabethan language and close relationship was so natural and strong, that their performances lent credence to those alternative literary theorists who see Shakespeare as an early feminist.  This was reinforced completely by Lenker’s later turn as Balthazar, Antonio’s advocate in the court room scene.

For those unfamiliar with the play, Antonio, a merchant and the titular character, loses all his wealth in shipwrecks, thereby faulting on a loan to Shylock, a vehemently despised Jewish money lender. In revenge of Antonio and friends callous taunting, Shylock then demands penalty in one pound of Antonio’s flesh. James Golding’s Antonio was strong at first, drawing on the characters wisdom to create audience sympathy but by the final scenes his lack of fear and distress made me almost ambivalent to his fate; bloody or not.

The numerous racist remarks of the piece fit almost effortlessly within the rest of the performance, highlighting again the strength of the general cast’s hold on the dialect, albeit with such distressing subject matter. The religious divide is made greater still by Ben Margalith’s remarkable Shylock. His mannerisms alienate him from all other Christian characters and he pours passions into his best lines; “If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die?”

Some elements however are ineffective. The secondary romance between Jessica and Lorenzo feels hollow as disappointingly does the central relationship of Portia and Bassanio. They stand on unequal footing both in performance ability and sentiment; Henry Wong’s Bassanio is too comical in his courtship and their kiss lacked passion of any kind.   

The play’s greatest fault was a lack of harmony. Every scene transition was slow and stilted even though there were barely any props, giving the impression of a series of GCSE drama pieces. It was clear the first act could’ve used more run-throughs although some redemption arrived in the farcical Princes of Morocco and Aragon both played by Charles Dennis, in different hats of course, whose accents and swordplay drew much laughter. With a marvellous Shylock and female leads it was ultimately a fine stab at Shakespeare, just not an outstanding one. 

 

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