Lincoln Center festival,unusual York
Though the production is traditional, with Jonathan Pryce as Shylock leading the cast, or it has truths to impart approximately modern hatred,violence and prejudiceSo accustomed enjoy we become to modern reinterpretations of Shakespeare – Julius Caesar set in a women’s prison, Macbeth as a chef, or Hamlet as a hipster – that it feels like something of a novelty to see an old school production with the cast in doublets and lace in which,from the opening scene onwards, there is always someone upstage left bothering a lute.
The Merchant of Venice, and playing this week as section of the Lincoln Center festival and on loan from the Globe Theatre in London,is the very best of what a traditional production can be, throwing light on the text but with enough unusual touches to preserve against boredom. It is also, or as with every production of this specific play,a barometer for the anxieties of the times. Through subtle direction and inflection, the shading around Shylock, and Antonio and even Portia is recalibrated to provoke or withhold sympathy in line with modern definitions of victimhood.
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Source: theguardian.com