Summary 
Broad humor and emotional drama are expertly blended, along with ample live music and an audience participation dance of the Hava Nagila, in this entertaining production. A well-played Portia, appealingly enamored with Bassanio, drives both the romance and the second-half courtroom dramatics, and a riveting Shylock - hated and full of hate - provides a strong foundation for an exceptional version of a difficult play.
Design
Directed by Jim Warren. Costume design by Jenny McNee.
Cast
Rene Thornton, Jr. (Antonio), Gregory Jon Phelps (Bassanio), Benjamin Curns (Gratiano), Chris Johnston (Lorenzo/Prince of Arragon), Tracy Hostmyer (Salarino/Old Gobbo), Grant Davis (Solanio), Ronald Peet (Duke of Venice/Prince of Morocco), James Keegan (Shylock), Abbi Hawk (Jessica), John Harrell (Tubal/Launcelot Gobbo), Tracie Thomason (Portia), Allison Glenzer (Nerissa).
Analysis
Jim Warren's production of The Merchant of Venice, one of his three directorial efforts during the summer and fall season at Virginia's American Shakespeare Center (ASC), begins with some rousing contemporary rock and roll, played with gusto by the cast. The songs are carefully chosen reflections on characters and themes within the play, like the soulful rendition of Otis Redding's "Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay" and its nod to the melancholy Antonio. Warren and his cast share sly senses of humor, and their productions benefit greatly from the winking clever fun, like the cast playing Simon and Garfunkel's mid-sixties "I Am a Rock" at a breakneck speed - "I Am a Punk Rock"? - in a reflection on Shylock's standing in society - "I have no need of friendship, friendship causes pain, it is laughter and loving I disdain" - before an audience clap-along to Hall and Oates' "You're a Rich Girl." The '70s hit's lyrics - "you can rely on an old man's money" - resonate with the emphasis Warren and the cast place on the separation of Jessica from her father, Shylock: "high and dry out of the rain, it's so easy to hurt others when you can't feel pain." Warren finishes the pre-show entertainment with audience members eagerly joining the musicians in the balcony, then a rendition of "Money (That's What I Want)," segueing quickly into a blowhard Gratiano's 1.1 inquiry into Antonio's sadness. Led by Benjamin Curns's Gratiano, these merchants of Venice are a band of good old boy ne'er-do-wells, hugging each other and slapping one another on the back as Gratiano flirts shamelessly with a young lady seated in an audience chair onstage.
James Keegan's impressive Shylock plays with a heavy Italian accent, shunning the begging of Bassanio 1.3 before stepping downstage to soliloquize directly to the audience. When Antonio repeatedly insults him from upstage left, the words come across as harsh and uncalled for, Keegan's Shylock enduring with a sad smile, then a shudder and a wince, and when Antonio spits at his feet, the entire audience is appalled. In 2.8, Keegan's Shylock endures the insults of Salarino and Solanio, who refer to themselves in a Hebrew stutter as "ch-ch-Christians" so by the time Shylock is implored for mercy 3.1, he quite naturally refuses: "let him look to his bond." When he insists that they "feed my revenge," one of the merchants spits into his face as the audience gasps. Keegan mesmerizes with his dignified wrath - "hath a Jew no blood?" - turning to the audience with his demands - "shall we not revenge?" - before he and Tubal are again humiliated, and he begins to weep for the prized turquoise ring his daughter has apparently sold for monkeys.
Warren and his talented ensemble do not shy away from this drama's lighter problem-comedy moments, seizing each as an opportunity for humor and audience involvement, but with the ingenuity to provide insight into the characters and the story. For example, John Harrell's clownish servant Launcelot plays 2.2 in a jester hat with leather tassels, using a high-pitched voice for his conscience against abandoning his master and a low baritone for the voice of reason to leave Shylock's service. He interacts with the audience onstage - at one point shutting down an over-enthusiastic response with an admonition: "we have auditions in the Spring" - and his father Old Gobbo is played as a Tim Conway-style blind man in sunglasses and a long white beard, bent over and tapping at the stage with a cane. Harrell's Launcelot ducks a cane swing but takes a slap to the behind, and Bassanio seems bemused by the cane waving dangerously close to his crotch as he hangs a wicker basket from the cane tip. Launcelot then helps Old Gobbo, who has missed the upstage doorway completely, to exit, and after Lorenzo and Jessica flee 2.3, he assists Shylock with his coat, looking more than a little guilty when Jessica does not answer the call from her father. When she appears among the patrons onstage and makes gestures to him, Harrell's Launcelot fails to understand and simply mimics her gestures behind Shylock's back. The antics are well played and fun to watch - at one point Launcelot punctuates one of his jokes to Shylock with a little drum-kit rim shot - but also underscore the conspiratorial banding together against the old Jewish merchant.
Tracie Thomason, an elegantly beautiful blonde actress, portrays the heroic Portia in an aqua blue and yellow gown, the back filmy white as if with an angel's wings. She arrives 1.2 with Nerissa, who wears lavender and green, neighing like a horse and galloping up to an audience member, then deriding another as a foreigner and finger-waving at yet one more. Thomason's Portia endures the Princes with a a chick-flick heroine's pins-and-needles grimace, Morocco in 2.1 pointing out supposed virginal women in the front row. When he pouts like a young boy and draws his curved scimitar, Nerissa pointedly uses herself to shield Thomason's Portia from him, but by 2.7 the Prince has selected the wrong-colored casket, muttering "oh hell" at the scroll he finds in the eye socket of a skull. And Chris Johnston as the Prince of Aragon steals the show in 2.9, certainly providing the comic highlight of the production, a strutting glam-rock superstar who kicks his feet in dancing and shoots finger guns in time to heavy metal guitar strums. Johnston's rock god wears a black and white fur coat and a massive feather head dress along with a red-bordered cod piece, kind of like 1970s-era Queen on crack. Johnston's scene-stealing Aragon slaps the lead casket, gives a desultory sniff of the gold casket, and does a shimmying stop-and-start disco-dance in front of the silver casket before being faced with the reflection in the mirror of a "blinking idiot." Quite in character, he makes fun of Portia's conciliatory words in a high-pitched voice, then storms off, although he of course keeps the little vanity mirror for himself.
Warren's production, already infused with exceptional drama counterpointed with sharp humor, also features an abundance of live music. The lascivious Gratiano, seeming to always be in mid-flirt with an audience member, leads the masked and caped revelers 2.6 and in 2.9 he appears in the balcony, still masked, counting out time with "dos, tres, cuatro!" before strumming his guitar to begin a song. The intermission features a foot-stomping harmonica-accompanied "My Baby Just Wrote Me A Letter" and then a bluesy "Soul Man" with Rene Thornton and Curns doing Aykroyd and Belushi up in the balcony with their hats, sport coats and ties, and sunglasses. The song features signature dance moves that delight the audience and the song concludes to a roar of applause, but Warren then concludes the intermission with an ingenious and insightful dance. In a production of a play for hundreds of years denounced as anti-Semitic, Warren invites ten of his audience members onstage to join some of the cast in a big circle to dance the Hava Nagila. Amid much laughter and clapping from the rest of the audience, the entire theatre seems to take part in the joyous traditional dance and its increasing tempo. The cast takes part in the dance or watches and claps along, and at one point Thomason applauds with so much gusto she loses her character's ring - a ring that is integral to the concluding act of the play - and with a smile she carefully eases into the mass of sideways humanity to retrieve the ring before it gets kicked away by a dozen quick-moving amateur dancers.
Warren plays the 3.2 romance of Portia and Bassanio like a television game show, with Bassanio rushing onstage even as the audience is still applauding the dance of the Hava Nagila. Portia addresses the front row of the audience in her soliloquy, then turns to unabashedly cheer Bassanio on - "go, Hercules!" - and a guitarist up in the musicians' box guides him to the correct casket with well-timed strumming, drowning out his questions about an incorrect casket then playing louder and faster in a childrens' game of hot-and-cold as he approaches the correct one. Bassanio's spin-move approach to the lead casket draws audience applause, and when he moves to kiss Portia, she jumps to kiss him first, and the audience erupts into cheers. Thomason refers to the stage as her home and the audience as "these servants," and gifts Bassanio with a ring, but Curns's coarse Gratiano manages to darken the scene, also professing his love, but slapping Nerissa rudely on the bottom and callously referring to Jessica as "Lorenzo and his infidel."
Keegan's Shylock and a jailer then lead a rope-bound Antonio across the stage - "I'll have my bond" - and the Jew endures more hateful spitting from the Christians not with a wince or a shudder, as before, but this time by laughing at them. The 4.1 trial begins amid drumbeats, presided over by a red-robed and gold-crowned Duke, Keegan's Shylock building a set of scales and whetting the blade of his knife on the bottom of his shoe. Antonio can barely speak in fear and Gratiano must be restrained from launching himself at Shylock before Portia appears in her wire-rimmed glasses disguise, wearing a pointy black scholar's cap and flowing red-and-black robes. Warren builds the tension expertly, showing Bassanio tearfully trying to pay the bond with blue sacks filled with coins - "my hands, my head, my heart" - as Shylock becomes excited to begin cutting, prowling downstage to show off his legal document to the front row, then up to the audience members seated onstage. Thomason's Portia seems to take special note of her husband's eloquent claims of unsurpassed loyalty and love for Antonio, Bassanio kneeling beside the condemned man and holding him close, but she delivers her case-winning argument even as Keegan's Shylock raises his knife. Antonio gasps and each pointed claim is crisply well-delivered by Thomason, the Duke's concluding decrees punctuated by Gratiano's exclaims: "o upright judge!" Denied first his bond, then his principal, and finally his fortune, Keegan's Shylock falls to his hands and knees then is knocked down so roughly by Gratiano that he slides all the way to the edge of downstage. The victorious Christians at first seems shocked, then pleased, then grinning with their victory, and Gratiano spits one last time at the hated Jew. To Keegan's great credit, when his Shylock slowly rises and exits in defeat, the silence in the theatre is palpable: one could hear a pin drop.
The ASC's intelligent audience responds well to Warren's denouement and happy ending, laughing at Bassanio's reluctance and Antonio's wide-eyed shock - "let him have the ring!" - then groaning so audibly when he surrenders it for the victorious barrister that the actor appeals to them with a guilty shrug. The 5.1 conclusion bears no hints of second thoughts or guilty consciences among the Christians and the converted, Launcelot lying on his back and plucking at his guitar - "zo la, zo la, zo la" - until Jessica kneels and joins him. Nerissa and Thomason's Portia rouse the two lovers - "peace ho!" - and Portia meets Antonio face to face, taking his proffered hand and pulling him into a warm embrace. Nerissa shows such great anger at the loss of the ring - "cut my left hand off!" - that the exasperated Gratiano turns on his friend - "my lord Bassanio also gave his ring away!" - in a betrayal that brings an explosion of delighted laughter from the audience. Thomason's lovely Portia, ever in control, moves with Nerissa to downstage, their backs to their husbands, and they coyly reveal the rings to the audience - "the ring, the ring, the ring, you would not have parted with...the ring" - before finally ending a very good production with a not-so-stern admonition: "give him this and bid him keep it better than the other."