Summary 
Powerful production set during the rise of the Nazis in 1930s Italy, enhanced by stylish Hollywood-style costuming. Some brightly comic moments and a hyper-intelligent Portia in an elegantly staged drama, with an excellent Shylock as a victim seizing the chance to victimize amid Christians who plead for mercy but show no mercy at all.
Design
Directed by Antoni Cimolino. Set designed by Douglas Paraschuk. Costume design by Charlotte Dean. Lighting design by Robert Thomson. Compositions by Keith Thomas. Sound design by Todd Charlton.
Cast
Wayne Best (Duke), Michael Blake (Morocco), Tyrell Crews (Bassanio), Victor Ertmanis (Old Gobbo), Sara Farb (Jessica), Michelle Giroux (Portia), Jonathan Goad (Gratiano), Robert King (Tubal), Tom McCamus (Antonio), Ron Pederson (Launcelot), Anand Rajaram (Salerio), Tyrone Savage (Lorenzo), Steven Sutcliffe (Solanio), Sophia Walker (Nerissa), Scott Wentworth (Shylock), Antoine Yared (Aragon).
Analysis
Newly appointed Stratford Festival artistic director Antoni Cimolino directs an updated The Merchant of Venice on the festival's main stage. Cimolino resets the play to the late 1930s amid the ominous rise of Italian fascists. Black Shirt military police move among the merchants and intimidate the citizenry in general. Swing music plays in the market and patrons read newspapers with headlines about Mussolini, some helping themselves to fruit from behind a café's gelato-stand counter. The stage consists of looming wrought iron fences and gates facing the courtyard café, with downstage ramps like curving bridges over a trickling stream, sculptured lion's heads at each side. When heroine Portia imitates one of her many suitors 1.2, she uses her little finger for a comic Hitler mustache, speaks with a clipped German accent, and as Nerissa roars, punches out a stiff Nazi salute and goose-steps across the stage. The scene reveals a bit of Portia's playfulness but certainly underscores the naiveté of the prevailing political climate.
The intertwined cultural climate is also explored by Cimolino in 3.1, as the bloodied Jew Shylock staggers onstage fleeing the violence not just from disapproving Christians, but from rock-throwing Christian children. Scott Wentworth's Shylock holds a handkerchief to his bloody head and clutches a framed photograph of his daughter Jessica, the children laughing at him as he falls to the stage. Shylock's shame and anger certainly become manifest in his lack of compassion for the merchant Antonio. Physically battered - shirt untucked, sleeves unbuttoned - and emotionally humiliated, he does not listen to entreaties but only repeats "let him look to his bond" before rising with cinematic fury: "hath not a Jew eyes?" He then blames the merchants for "the Christian example of revenge," and sinks - partly in fatigue but partly in despair - to the bridge as he bemoans "the villainy you teach me." Earlier, in 3.1 Tom McCamus' suave Antonio spits in Shylock's face and chases him across the stage before laughing off a bond of a pound of flesh, and Gratiano's casually off-hand insult of an entire faith is particularly repellent in 3.2: "here comes Lorenzo and his infidel," referring to Shylock's daughter Jessica, now disguised with dyed-blonde hair.
Cimolino begins with painterly portraits of the main characters, first McCamus' cool-cat Antonio, sipping coffee from a demitasse 1.1, cross-legged at a bistro table beside a rolling gelato stand, wearing a vested gray suit with a scarlet scarf. The staging is impeccable, businessmen and merchants wearing expensive suits, an Italian youth in shorts and high socks in pursuit of his bouncing soccer ball, then Bassanio and Gratiano and the rest of their tennis club posse. They wear white sporting clothes like an over-entitled brat pack, wielding gym bags and racquets and a big white tennis ball - "you are sad because you are not married" - and their behavior is callow and shallow: Gratiano is a clown, pretending to crush a finger in a chair that collapses beneath his weight; Lorenzo is a silly Gratiano wanna-be, whinnying like a horse as he head-butts his friend offstage across one of the bridges, clutching at Gratiano's belt; and even romantic Bassanio is something of a boor, waxing poetic about Portia before rushing offstage while Antonio is still speaking to him. Next, Michelle Giroux's tall and lanky Portia arrives like a 1940s Hollywood heroine in horseback riding gear, gloves and helmet, riding pants and boots, tossing down her riding crop like Katherine Hepburn reincarnated. She flops into her wicker chaise lounge with melodramatic angst as Nerissa appears upon the golden balcony above. Finally, Scott Wentworth - a late replacement for the ailing Brian Bedford, admirably doubling up with his role as Teve in Fiddler on the Roof - plays a businessman Shylock in short-cropped hair and reading glasses, repeating "well" over and over to Bassanio to draw out the man's 1.3 loan request, intentionally being difficult to make Bassanio uncomfortable. He is perfunctorily insulting of Antonio - "I hate him" - licking a finger slowly before turning a page of the documents, and he almost spits out the details - "a pound of flesh" - of his requested bond.
Cimolino develops richly detailed supporting characters. In 2.2 Launcelot is chased onstage, also intimidated by vicious Christian children. He removes his jacket, stuffs a napkin under his chin, and gnaws an apple from the café cart as he introduces his blind and sunglasses-wearing father, Old Man Gobbo, to the audience. Gobbo feels the back of his son's head - "what a beard thou hast!" - as he shambles in from stage left with the use of a cane, and purple-shirted Launcelot pours Lorenzo a 3.5 cocktail from a silver mixer, but coyly plucks out a green olive. He aids Jessica 2.3 in planning her escape from Shylock - "our house is hell" - and during 2.4 she gives her father a long, warm embrace that Shylock does not realize is actually a hug goodbye. After she drops her heavy suitcase from the balcony to Lorenzo - who staggers comically with the weight - and his Christian friends, she descends and kisses him to resounding cheers for her escape. And Jonathan Goad's Gratiano conceals his churlish racism beneath a dashing Jay Gatsby veneer, goateed with slicked back hair, two-toned shoes and an open-necked shirt beneath a linen suit jacket, all topped by a straw hat. He follows Bassanio 2.2, both pursued by delivery men carrying overloads of department store boxes.
Bassanio's romance with Portia makes up the lighter portion of the play. Giroux's Portia is wooed 2.1 by the smooth-talking Morocco in his tan suit and red fez, her servants gathering to watch, all in awe of him, the women giggling. When he returns 2.7 to make his casket choice for Portia's hand, Nerissa and the others peer around the set to avoid eye contact with Morocco, and he chooses incorrectly - "oh hell!" - then glares at a bobbing skull in the little box. He exits quickly - "too grieved a heart to take a tedious leave" - giving way to the buffoonish Prince of Aragon 2.9, by far the comic highlight of the production. Antoine Yared plays Aragon with a comical arrogance, wearing a porn-star mustache and a red handkerchief and tie to complement his power suit, smugly holding out his coat in silent expectation of Nerissa to take it from him. He speaks in an outrageously over-emphasized accent - "ass much ass he deserves" - and he drags his toes in taking big and exaggerated steps. Yared nearly brings down the house with his Michael Jackson-style dance moves, and he shimmies, shambles and slides all over the stage, finally making his way to his choice of casket, where he executes a pointing spin move before he opens it. His cry of defeat - "mama!" - and abject slumped exit bring sighs of relief from Portia's household servants as well as some laughter and applause.
Bassanio himself arrives at Portia's home 3.2 like Frank Sinatra leading the Rat Pack, wearing a black tuxedo with bow tie and gleaming black shoes as Nerissa leads them in to oohs and aahs from the household staff. The servants all smile, hold their hands to their hearts, and gasp a collective "aaah!" when Giroux's Portia arrives in a shoulderless black velvet gown with silver necklace to share with Bassanio a long smoldering stare. The choice of casket is drawn out, one of the servants singing a 1940s ballad from the staircase while Giroux's Portia bends at the waist to urge him on - "go, Hercules!" - the servant girls squealing when Bassanio is successful and he and Portia share a passionate kiss. He accepts her ring as Goad's Gratiano teases Nerissa - pointing out other women as his fiancée - then lifts her off her feet in an embrace.
Wentworth's Shylock is less than villainous but certainly complex, heartbreakingly sad and alone with his lantern in the darkness 2.5, enduring ridicule from a group of merchants at the café 2.6, then cursing Jessica for her betrayal 3.1, before covering his mouth in horror at his own words as Tubal comforts him and Cimolino breaks for interval. By 3.3 Wentworth's Shylock seems to be feeling some satisfaction, leading the jailer and a manacled Antonio while clutching the key himself - and after a car-start sound effect as Bassanio rushes off like Cary Grant to Antonio's defense - the trial begins 4.1 amid trumpets. Shylock is booed and cat-called by the Christian majority as he sets up his scales and briefcase next to a framed photograph of Jessica. With a spotlighted crucifix in the balcony above two winged lions, Wentworth's Shylock calmly returns the sack of 6000 ducats Bassanio has hurled to his feet and begins to whet the blade of a knife on the sole of his shoe. He endures more spit, this time from Goad's self-righteous Gratiano, and his hands shake visibly as he removes his glasses and wipes his face with a handkerchief.
Nerissa and Portia do not wear convincing disguises, simply a man's suit and hat with black eyeglasses, Giroux's Portia adding a false mustache. The brilliant "mercy is enthroned in the hearts of kings" plea from Portia is suitably impassioned - "to do a great right, do a little wrong" - but of course falls on deaf ears. Wentworth's Shylock squares his shoulders as his friend Tubal turns away from him and exits, Cimolino expertly pointing out dissension among the faithful, and Shylock seems to be becoming aware when he turns Jessica's portrait face down as if to prevent himself from being witnessed. After McCamus' brave Antonio bares his chest, Wentworth's Shylock grabs him roughly by the hair on the back of his head and raises his knife high, but Giroux's wiser-than-wise Portia - "not a jot of blood" - of course interrupts and saves the day.
Just as he complicates Shylock with reflexive anger at very real injustices, then shows him stubborn enough not to give way to higher morality, Cimolino also reveals the pettiness of the Christian victors, who do not defeat or even crush Wentworth's Shylock, but annihilate him. Shylock drops his knife - Gratiano: "o learned judge!" - but picks it up again for another attempt to stab Antonio when denied his principal - "tarry, Shylock!" - as onlookers scream out. When he attempts to exit, he is shoved backward and forced to his knees, and as the Christians around him make rude pig-like noises and giggle and laugh, he has his fortune and faith taken from him. Wentworth's Shylock prays, silent and stricken, his hand upon his heart, and finally, Giroux's Portia approaches him - "I am not well" - and helps him to stand. He makes a dignified exit as Gratiano flings his red velour yarmulke at his feet, some of the Christians still mocking him.
Much to Cimolino's credit, the concluding celebration of the victory rings hollow in dramatic fashion, beginning 5.1 after the offer of wedding rings in gratitude by Bassanio and Gratiano to the supposed lawyers. In Belmontese-blue moonlight 5.1, Lorenzo kisses Jessica and opens a bottle of wine, but when he attempts to play romantic music on an old-style transistor radio, the station is interrupted by ominous newscasts and world war bulletins. He shuts it off and the mood sobers in silence before Portia and Bassanio return (after the convincing sound effect of an approaching automobile), followed by Nerissa beating Goad's Gratiano with her pocketbook for having "lost" his ring. Gratiano comically implicates his friend - "Bassanio gave his ring away!" - and Giroux's Portia interrogates him so he is constantly backpedaling and must turn to Antonio for help (and not get any). Once the romantic entanglements and loyalties are resolved, all but Shylock's daughter Jessica exit upstage, and Giroux's Portia makes a point of approaching her and giving her Shylock's red velour yarmulke from the trial. The gesture is touching, transcending faiths, an important lesson as World War II air raid sirens begin to wail and, in Cimolino's closing stage image, Portia looks worriedly up to the sky around them.
