The Merchant of Venice at The Shakespeare
By Randy Shulman
on
July 3, 2011
Ethan McSweeney directs The Merchant of Venice, Shakespeare’s compelling look at human nature and the insidious nature of power, justice and revenge. The Shakespeare Theatre Company stages it for the first time in more than a decade. To July 24. Sidney Harman Hall, Harman Center for the Arts, 610 F St. NW. Tickets are $20 to $98. Call 202-547-1122 or visit shakespearetheatre.org.
Stages are alight this Spring with a deluge of exciting productions -- some starry, as in the case of The Shakespeare Theatre's Uncle Vanya featuring Hugh Bonneville, equally beloved in Downton Abbey and the joyous Paddington films.
The beauty of theater -- and in all these inventive, upcoming works -- is that it serves up various points of view with drama, wit, and intellect often concealed under the guise of boisterous entertainment. At its best, theater quenches our thirst for a deeper connection to our fellow human beings. At its worst, it's Cats. Still, theater sometimes gives you a musical moment that makes your spirits soar.
It can't be easy to write a play that successfully cries out to the world "Look what happened here! Understand!" Many fall way too hard on the side of over-explaining, feeding the drama with fiction-busting expository and presenting their characters as either heroes or villains to make every point crystal clear.
Their hearts may be in the right place, but they so woefully underestimate their audience that they lose it. The truth is, everyone who has made it to adulthood knows that life is messy and that even the "good guys" stumble and struggle. The plays that can deliver their message amid this human ambiguity are the powerhouses in this tradition, playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins being a prime example.
There are many ways to skin the Chekhov cat. There is everything from word-for-word renderings to more imaginative riffs such as Aaron Posner's wildly beautiful Stupid F***king Bird. What unites them all is Chekhov's unstoppable relevance; his uncanny ability to touch a variety of universal nerves.
In the mood for soul-eroding ennui, being smart enough to know what you should be doing and not doing it, and the comic frustration of intertwined lives? Chekhov's your man.
Simon Godwin walks his own attractively clever line here, delivering an Uncle Vanya, adapted by noted Irish playwright Conor McPherson, that arrives like a finely marbled steak. The increasingly fraught family dynamic is fully and meatily intact, but it is streaked with a modern sensibility.
