The Merchant Of Venice
[img="http://www.oxfordstudent.com/images/3_star.gif"http://www.oxfordstudent.com/images/3_star.gif"] Author: William Shakespeare; Directors: Oliver Warren, Tom Gorst, Will Mack Corpus Christi Gardens, 12th–14th May, 7.30pm (Matinee at 2.30pm on 14th only)
There are a plethora of common or garden productions available to help while away the newly arrived balmy summer evenings in Oxford, and Corpus joins the fray in Third week, with a classy outdoor play that is well worth a trip down Merton Street. Simple yet elegant, this version of The Merchant of Venice takes full advantage of the beauty of the college’s main gardens and buildings, one of whose windows is used to good effect in Jessica and Lorenzo’s balcony scene.
The efforts of directors Warren, Gorst and Mack to keep the costumes timeless and props to a minimum add to a streamlined and uncluttered set without appearing in any way ‘low budget’ or the worse for such paring down. While the play remains infamous for its supposedly anti-Semitic overtones, this production attempts to tread a middle ground between the exoneration and the damnation of one of literature’s most prominent Jewish figures.
Basher Savage’s Shylock retains the spiteful malice which will eventually lead to his downfall, but this portrayal links such characteristics with similar ones exhibited by the Christian characters, and his consequent resentment of their hypocrisy, rather than his religion.
But while exuding plenty of vindictive glee, Savage never quite manages to catch the essential gravitas and angry dignity of the role, not helped by very occasional lapses into the kind of slightly camp fawning not part of a strictly Shakespearian repertoire.
Interacting well with James Kierstead and Harry Scoble- Rees’s Antonio and Bassanio, he makes good use of the space on stage, in particular once he is convicted during the trial scene, but manages to add a touch of the pantomime villain to a complex and layered character.
Kierstead should be credited for his representation of a somewhat foppish Antonio, whose love for Portia nevertheless contrasts favourably with the teenage ‘grande passion’ in which Richard Hunt and Sara Gordon revel as Lorenzo and Jessica. In another key role, Portia is played by Skye Lucas- Banks with consummate delicacy and sensitivity, constrained by the very mechanisms set in place to protect her.
Afine verse speaker, the resentment she clearly feels at being shut up in the ethereal Belmont complements the decision of the director to set apart the dichotomous atmospheres of Portia’s palace and the city of Venice in terms of costume as well as space. The eventual meeting of the two strands of the plot is reflected in the gradual intermingling of props from each of the two separate ‘worlds’.
Although it is clear that the members of the cast vary in the extent of their acting experience, their unity around the production’s central tenets of simplicity and light-heartedness makes for an enjoyable and at times gripping production, poignantly contrasting the excitement of the courtroom drama with the tragedy of Shylock’s fate.
All that remains to make this complete is for Corpuscles to hope that no ‘gentle rain from heaven’ actually drops upon their college gardens during Third week.
5th May 2005