Merchant of Venice

Note: This review dates from November 2001 and the production’s original London run.

This Shakespeare play of religious intolerance is a timely opener for the Royal Shakespeare Company’s new London season. Just as we’re getting to grips with the mutual mistrust felt by one religion towards another comes this timely reminder of how things were ordered in Elizabethan times.

Loveday Ingram‘s under-stated production is set in a late-Victorian England, perhaps a high spot in sexual hypocrisy. It’s a fine idea; particularly in the opening scene where Ian Gelder‘s world-weary Antonio disports himself with Bassanio and his cronies. Just in case we didn’t get the picture, there’s a considerable amount of kissing and slapping.

But despite some nice touches, Ingram’s production fails to catch light. This is partly do to its genteel pace and partly because the antagonism between the Christians and Shylock is never really brought into the open. No doubt, the anti-semitism in the 19th century would have lain under the surface, but that’s not in line with the text.

And Ian Bartholmew‘s Shylock is a strange creature. Eschewing the heavy Jewish accent that actors usually bring to this part and keeping his emotions in check, he seems more like a seasoned philosopher than a battle-hardened usurer fighting daily battles with the businessmen on the Rialto. The anti-semitism in general is also hidden too much under the surface. Shylock’s speech is mocked (even though he hasn’t an accent to mock) and a gobbet of spit is aimed at his fellow Jew, Tubal, but it all seems too contrived.

That said, there are racist elements aplenty in this Merchant of Venice. Hermione Gulliford‘s impressive Portia is a coldly dispassionate lawyer laying down the law to a horrified Shylock. But this Portia is under no illusions about Bassanio’s sexual inclinations and his relationship with Antonio; there is little attempt at tenderness between her and Paul Hickey]’s delicate and restrained Bassanio.

Elsewhere, there are some jarring moments. Darren Tunstall tries hard, but his Lancelot Gobbo is desperately unfunny. Lancelot is a character that often seems to come from a different play and, in this sombre production, he is completely out of place. And the Prince of Morocco shouldn’t really be represented as a groin-thrusting caricature of a black man; this is not the 1970s.

Despite some good performances then, this is an unsatisfying RSC production that fails to grip. Although, to be fair, on the night this reviewer attended, it was rapturously received by the rest of the audience.

Maxwell Cooter