The Merchant of Venice at the Royal Lyceum Theatre in Edinburgh – review

Theatre For A New Audience is an American group based in New York City, and their 2022 production of The Merchant of Venice, which here marks the company’s Edinburgh debut, bristles with new word swagger and Manhattan style. All of this Merchant’s gutsy, assertive performances are larger than life, even down to minor roles like the Princes of Morocco and Aragon, and if the actors’ delivery of the dialogue initially feels sluggish, then it’s also admirably clear. I can’t remember a recent Shakespeare production where the power of the diction drew me in so quickly, and it culminates in a trial scene that’s nothing short of gripping.

Arin Arbus’ production sets the action in an American city in the near future, which is clearly an attempt to draw out the play’s contemporary resonances, though that’s not always successful. The most obvious hook is casting a Black actor as Shylock in an attempt to equate the otherness of the Jew in Renaissance Europe to that of Black people in contemporary America.

When those performers get going, however, they rivet the attention. At the play’s heart is the magisterial Shylock of John Douglas Thompson. He plays the outcast Jew with wounded grandeur and gives unusual tragic heights to the character’s poetry. He is pitiable after Jessica’s elopement, and it’s easy to empathise with his desire for revenge against the Christians who wrong him; but his ambiguity is never unduly diluted, and the greed and vindictiveness are unmistakeably a part of his character.

As Antonio and Bassanio, the banter and physicality between Alfredo Narcisco and Ariel Shafir suggests the sexual ambiguity in the two men’s relationship (though this is made clumsily plain in the court scene), while David Lee Huỳnh makes Lorenzo’s venality as ugly as it is obvious. Poor Jessica has made a terrible mistake eloping with him, as Danaya Esperanza’s wounded performance makes all too plain. Isabel Arraiza makes a forthright but feminine Portia, even though she becomes too shouty in the courtroom scene, and Shirine Babb’s Nerissa is a well-grounded foil for her.

Riccardo Hernandez’s multi-tiered set allows several scenes to play out in parallel, but if it’s grand then it’s also drab, and there’s no visual distinction between the contrasting worlds of Venice and Belmont. However, most gripes about the show get swept away by the sheer charisma of the performances, which are worth the admission price on their own. With energy and brio like theirs, even Shakespeare sceptics will enjoy this.