Review: shocking new context for bold, mesmerising take on The Merchant of Venice

Nothing underlines the ghastly difficulty of The Merchant of Venice more chillingly than the fact that the Nazi party adored it. To their minds at the very least, it served their purposes admirably – and it would be naïve in the extreme to believe that this fact isn’t in some way a reflection of the play itself. But that’s precisely the difficulty that Brigid Larmour’s remarkable production, currently running in the Minerva, tackles head on. What do you do with a play that the Nazis admired? You turn its villains into Nazis… or, more specifically in this case, British fascists.

It’s a stroke of genius, springing from a conversation between director Larmour and Tracy-Ann Oberman – our Shylock – who said that she wanted to portray the character as a working-class Jewish matriarch in London’s East End, just as her own great grandmother had been.

The production takes us back, as the amended title states, to 1936, its background now the rise of fascism, a moment in our history that this country perhaps has never fully and truly addressed.

The backdrop, for the most part tonight, is row of grim buildings defiled with fascist posters and antisemitic graffiti. And it’s in this context that Shylock, so cruelly abused and so intent simply on making a life for herself and her daughter, makes the fateful loan, stipulating and then later attempting to exact her pound of flesh.

There’s hideous casualness and entitlement to Raymond Coulthard’s Antonio and to the odious Gratiano (Xavier Starr) – and we really shouldn’t be shocked when Antonio turns up for court black-shirted and black-booted. Fascism’s rise is accelerating.

For all Shylock’s demands are shocking too, this is a production which makes them comprehensible at the very least – an attempt at defiance in the face of the horrors which are on the march.

The play is at its most powerful and indeed sickening when the machine of justice is twisted to crush Shylock… before a final twist which the production adds as it attempts to make us all rise up in solidarity.

It is a piece beautifully acted across the board, the ease of the delivery drawing you in powerfully, making the text soar in all its complexities. There’s a huge amount for Shylock to carry in this challenging reimagining, and Tracy-Ann Oberman carries it superbly. “If you prick us do we not bleed?” has never felt more relevant; her words have never felt more needed.

Equally there is a superb performance from Hannah Morrish as Portia, such an intriguing character made all the more so tonight. There is electricity in the air in the court scene, and again it is the fluency of the delivery which makes it all so compelling. It is mesmerising stuff in a new context which convinces. Well, almost entirely.

The casket scenes are even more jarring in this new setting. The other – and perhaps more significant mistake – of the night is to have Antonio double as Arragon, a role which ought to have been picked up by one of the lesser players. But probably that’s quibbling. This is a bold new take which sends us all home with plenty of food for thought.

Until Saturday.