An intriguing slimmed-down take on Shakespeare’s problematical comedy

Adaptor/director Bill Alexander describes his relationship with The Merchant of Venice as "obsessive" and he's directed acclaimed productions at the RSC and Birmingham Rep. He flags up his intention to rethink Shakespeare’s problematical comedy by paring the cast down to just six and focusing on “the tortured nature of love at the inner core of the play”.

His six characters take to a stage with the audience on three sides, bare but for benches and mosaic motifs (designer Sara Perks). It makes for tight focus and allows intimacy with the viewers. Considering that Lena Robin’s intelligent, beguiling Portia has no Nerissa (her waiting gentlewoman) as confidante, it’s just as well the audience is ‘there for her’ as she takes us into her confidence, sharing screenshots of rejected suitors on her phone.

The mobile phone is a feature of ‘modern Venice’, used most effectively by Shylock talking to his wingman Tubal, who describes his eloping daughter Jessica’s extravagance with the ducats she’s taken to share with her lover Lorenzo. Shylock’s heartbroken words on hearing she’s sold a ring that belonged to his beloved late wife Leah, a vital key to Shylock’s character and subsequent actions, somehow works on the phone thanks to Peter Tate’s multi-layered performance, achieving intimacy both with Tubal and the audience.

Less effective is Jessica herself as only an echoing voice from within Shylock’s house. However, Portia’s suitor Bassanio becomes her intimate in more ways than one. So although Alexander Knox’s sharp-suited, on-the-money Bassanio makes no bones about his attraction to her fortune as he begs Antonio, the eponymous merchant, to finance his wooing of the wealthy beauty, he and Portia are genuinely soulmates.

Three lockets replace the golden, silver and bronze caskets between which Portia’s suitors must choose to win her according to her late father’s diktat. Placed around his beloved’s neck for Bassanio to choose, they make for electric intimacy.

Unusually, Antonio himself is the object of affection of Solania, a composite of two Venetians, Salerio and Solanio. Mary Chater is a quietly dignified though ardent presence. Although the idea of a mature woman silently yearning for the mature object of her love is potentially interesting, it seems a strange choice with only six characters onstage.

And so to the meat of the play – Shylock demands his bond, his pound of flesh, and Portia, disguised as hot young barrister Balthazar (effective with wig and horn-rimmed specs) famously pleads for mercy for Antonio. Robin’s clear voice is especially beguiling here, even as she contemptuously addresses Shylock as ‘Jew’. Shylock’s heart is hardened, not by Venice’s casual endemic antisemitism, but because of the loss of his daughter. John McAndrew’s effective Antonio cannot help but reveal his yearning for Bassanio by his willing acceptance of his fate in the absence of any chance of fulfilment of his secret love.

In perhaps the most devastating moment, Tate’s defeated Shylock, ordered to give up his fortune and convert to Christianity and cruelly taunted by Gratiano, the play’s most eloquent antisemite (a nuanced performance from Alex Wilson, whose humour has been irrepressible till now) speaks the simple words, “I pray you give me leave to go from hence”, with a stillness suggesting he means to depart this world.

The omission of Jessica and Lorenzo means the beauty of their dreamy loved-up exchange towards the play’s end is lost. Nonetheless, A Merchant of Venice does shed new light on this much-revisited play.

By Judi Herman

Photos by Guy Bell

A Merchant of Venice runs until Saturday 4 December. 7.30pm, 2.30pm (Thu & Sat only). From £13.50. The Playground Theatre, W10 6RQ. theplaygroundtheatre.london

Listen to our interview with actor Peter Tate on JR OutLoud.