Theatre review: The Merchant of Venice(Sam Wanamaker Playhouse)

Measure for Measure, Hamlet and The Merchant of Venice doesn't sound like the most exciting season imaginable on paper, but the Swanamaker has been firing on all cylinders this winter, and in what could have been the least promising offering of all it turns out they've saved the best till last: Abigail Graham's is probably the best Merchant I've ever seen, and not just because she's cut the entirety of Act 5. In fact, as we've come to expect from the Globe, it's not a production that's precious with the text, cutting and reshuffling to serve its purpose. In this instance, it's to set the action in the high-risk, masculine, bullying culture of modern-day city traders, so we open with Aaron Vodovoz' geeky Launcelot Gobbo asking for a job with Bassanio (Michael Marcus.) He's made to play a drinking game as part of his application, which mainly involves a penalty every time he says the word "Jew" - and as he's talking about wanting to leave his current employer, the Jewish moneylender Shylock, he says it a lot. He ends up very drunk and humiliated, but gets the job.

Radio review: The Merchant of Venice

Despite the theatres gradually reopening this will still end up being a very Shakespeare-light year for me, so it's as good a time as any to catch up on a few more of the recent audio adaptations from Radio 3, which remain available on BBC Sounds under the Shakespeare Sessions strand. It's not a particular favourite of mine but it's been a few years since my last Merchant of Venice and the casting for Emma Harding's 2018 production is intriguing, notably that of Andrew Scott as Shylock. Harding has set the story in the City of London during the 2008 financial crash, and to open with a sidebar, I was once interviewed for a theatre job by someone who supposedly specialised in "authentic" Shakespeare, who grumbled a lot about a modern-dress RSC production of this play, saying it was impossible to set it post-Holocaust. Unless you base your interpretation entirely on the fact that the play's antisemitism is openly state-sanctioned (and I've talked elsewhere about my feelings on defining an entire production by one line or scene,) that seems either a naïvely sunny view of modern tolerance, or more likely a restrictively literal-minded approach to theatre: In the years leading up to that particular crash Jews might not have been the bogeyman of choice, but the post-9/11 world wasn't exactly shy about demonising one group of people.

Theatre review: The Merchant of Venice(Shakespeare's Globe & tour)

This year's tiny tour returns to the Globe for its final performances, and following the #VotersChoice gimmick of this season I wonder how many times The Merchant of Venice has actually been played in front of an audience before this final scheduled performance - my suspicion was always that Twelfth Night would win most often, and a review of Press Night I read suggested it wiped the floor with the competition then. Having seen the first two shows in the touring company's repertory before they set out, I left for last the story of Bassanio (Luke Brady,) who needs funds to travel to a distant land and take part in a fairytale competition for the hand of the wealthy Portia (Jacqueline Phillps.) His friend Antonio (Russell Layton,) the titular merchant, takes out a loan on Bassanio's behalf, but when he's unable to pay it back a bloody clause inserted into the loan agreement comes back to haunt him.

Theatre review: The Merchant of Venice (RSC / RST)

With three productions of The Merchant of Venice in the same year it might be difficult for each one to establish its own identity, but they've managed it; Polly Findlay's at the RSC does so by stripping everything back to the bare essentials, both of text and staging. One thing that isn't pared down though is the story's homoerotic potential: Antonio (Jamie Ballard) is the wealthy titular merchant, Bassanio (Jacob Fortune-Lloyd) his young friend, and with Findlay showing the pair kissing from the outset, it's clear they're more than just friends, and there's a reason Antonio is so smitten he'd do anything to help him. Anything including signing a decidedly dodgy bond to guarantee a loan on Bassanio's behalf: He's been openly abusive to Jewish moneylender Shylock (Makram J. Khoury,) but to finance Bassanio's get-rich-quick scheme Antonio agrees to forfeit a pound of his flesh if he fails to repay the debt. It's impossible for all his outstanding investments to fail at the same time - except of course they all do.

Theatre review: The Merchant of Venice (Shakespeare's Globe)

My second (though not my last) Merchant of Venice of 2015 is one of the tent poles of the "Justice and Mercy" theme in this year's Globe season. Already deep into debt, Bassanio (Daniel Lapaine) believes marrying a wealthy heiress - who also happens to love him - will solve all his money problems. But in order to get to Portia (Rachel Pickup) and the eccentric conditions under which she has to choose a husband, he needs another loan. His merchant friend Antonio (Dominic Mafham,) confident of his investments paying out soon, is willing to secure the loan from Jewish moneylender Shylock (Jonathan Pryce.) But while Venetian society as a whole is openly prejudiced against the Jews who keeps its business running, Shylock has always found Antonio's behaviour particularly egregious. As a gesture of his power over him, he gets the merchant to sign a clause allowing him to cut a pound of flesh from his body if he defaults on payment.

Theatre review: The Merchant of Venice (Almeida)

In my end-of-year reviews I usually have a look at some of the recurring themes that have kept turning up on stage in those months. Most are unexpected but as I go into my first show of 2015 I already know what one of them is going to be: It's generally a Shakespeare play that theatres avoid nowadays but at the moment there's three separate productions of The Merchant of Venice that I'm planning to see in the next six months. First up is a production I first saw in Stratford-upon-Avon in 2011, Rupert Goold's high-profile relocation of the action to modern-day Las Vegas. Venice is now a '60s-themed casino where the merchant Antonio (Scott Handy) takes out a $3 million loan on behalf of his friend Bassanio (Tom Weston-Jones,) who needs it to seek out a wealthy heiress on a reality TV show.