Jonathan Pryce in 'Merchant of Venice' at Lincoln Center Festival.
Photo: Manuel Harden
By Jil Picariello, ZEALnyc Theater Editor, July 25, 2016
Jonathan Pryce seems to have religion on his mind lately wherever he goes. Whether leading the Faith Militant on Game of Thrones or representing the despised Jews of Venice, he's facing misbelievers, haters, and powerful, vengeful women whichever way he turns.
His portrait of Shylock in the dark and powerful production of The Merchant of Venice from the Globe Theatre in London, part of the Lincoln Center Festival, is brilliant and tragic. He invests his character with so much humanity that the distances of time and space vanish. He is a man of our time, a man of all time. His famous speech about the similarity of his sufferings to ours has never been more compelling or more moving.
This is a Shylock of restraint and dignity, which makes his suffering all the more profound. Although this Shylock suffers his expected humiliations with dignity and composure--clearly this is not the first time he has been spat upon--the degradations that this story heaps upon him, and the devastation that Pryce conveys, are heartbreaking. In the end all he has left is his faith, and when that it stripped from him the anguish is almost too much to bear.
The simple set by Mike Britton and the shadowy lighting by Oliver Fenwick are brooding and gorgeous, a stylized representation of the darkness that shrouds this world. And all the performances, under the direction of Jonathan Munby, are excellent, with particularly stellar turns from the three women. Mr. Pryce's daughter Phoebe Pryce, captures the sense of suffocation that compels Shylock's daughter Jessica to flee her father's home, and then slowly grow to understand her loss. The brief scene between father and daughter in Yiddish (definitely not in the original text) serves to both solidify their standing as "other," and also unite them as family and people. Rachel Pickup is a queenly Portia, commanding, tart, and willful. And Dorothea Myer-Bennett does an awful lot with the smaller part of Portia's waiting-woman, the snappy and charming Nerissa.
Stefan Adegbola deserves special mention as well. As the comic and, in this version, broadly cockney Launcelot Gobbo, he grabs two "volunteers" from the audience and drags them up on stage to play his "fiend" and his "conscience." He ad-libs some comedy as well, including admonishing the fellow playing the fiend in the production I saw, who was hamming it up to the audience's delight, "You stand. I act."
More hilarity ensued in the scenes of Portia's two misbegotten suitors, wrung for every laugh--and there were plenty.
But it is the darkness that rules in this production, the violence that is barely beneath the surface that bubbles to the fore with stunning force. The challenges in the text to a modern audience are dealt with well, although I am still puzzling over the addition of a near kiss between Antonio and Bassanio. It implies that the merchant is helping his younger friend because he is secretly in love with him. It does help explain why Antonio would put his entire fortune, and his life, on the line to the Jew he despises for the trivial notion of underwriting a courtship. But is it also there to help explain why Antionio, seemingly the kindest-hearted of men, so despises Shylock and his people? Is it the hatred of one reviled class of men to another? Does he focus hatred on the Jew to keep the spotlight off himself? I'm not sure if this fleeting moment can serve to explain so much, but it's interesting food for thought.
The additional final scene, with white-robed priests baptizing the newly Christian Shylock, was heartbreaking--and served to confirm this often confusing hybrid of a play as the tragedy we now see it to be. As Jessica wails in Hebrew, recognizing her loss and displacement, Shylock, bareheaded, white gowned, cries in anguish as the water drips down his face. It's a punch to the gut, a brilliant production, and a performance that will stay with you long after the torches go out.
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The Merchant of Venice. A Lincoln Center Festival presentation of Shakespeare's Globe production of a play in two acts by William Shakespeare. Directed by Jonathan Munby. Sets, Mike Britton; lighting, Oliver Fenwick; sound, Christopher Shutt; music, Jules Maxwell; choreography, Lucy Hind; fight direction, Kate Waters; production stage manager, Paul Russell. Cast: Jonathan Pryce, Dominic Mafham, Rachel Pickup, Phoebe Pryce, Andy Apollo, Dan Fredenburgh , Dorothea Myer-Bennett, Jolyon Coy.
Jil Picariello is ZEALnyc's Theater Editor, and writes frequently on theater and culture.
Want to read about other Lincoln Center Festival offerings? Read our review: Takarazuka Invades the Lincoln Center Festival with an all-female production of 'Chicago.'
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