Merchant of Venice at the Almeida

In the past six months I've being reading more and watching more plays than ever before, and yet the blog has all but died. Ironic? I honestly couldn't tell you - the concept of irony baffles me. But I do know it's not great blogger form, and now I have a humongous backlog of great books and performances that I'm dying to write about. Besides, the fact that I have three essays looming over me in the next month is a great motivation to get back to the blog. 

First up, The Merchant of Venice at the Almeida theatre. Artistic director Rupert Goold has set Shakespeare's dark comedy of prejudice and property in the glistering, superficial world of Las Vegas, complete with Antonio the melancholic gambler (Scott Handy), Launcelot the Elvis impersonator (Jamie Beamish), and Portia (Susannah Fielding) the Southern blonde bombshell princess. Now, I am well aware of the fervently anti-modern-Shakespeare-adaptation faction out there, even more so since beginning my MA and feeling like the least serious, phoniest Shakespeare scholar out there. What can I say? I love a good change of scenery in a Shakespeare play, it keeps it fresh for people less academically minded and often offers a new perspective on an over-exhausted debate. That being said, adaptations always need to be done well -  I've found they work best when they don't need too much complex explanation and emphasise the fun element of pitching a seventeenth century script in a totally alien element. Programmes are great ways of engaging the audience and allowing the director to explain their thought processes, but at about £4 or more a pop not everyone is going to invest - an adaptation needs to be self-explanatory, but leave room for the audience to think once the show is over.

For me, Merchant at the Almeida did exactly this. There have been hugely mixed reviews of it, a lot negative, and I faced quite a negative reaction when admitting my positive thoughts about it to fellow students. The general consensus is that the bright lights and exaggerated Americanisation clouded the all-important plot. Fair enough, at times I was mesmerised more by Portia's bouncing golden ringlets than her lamentations over her imprisonment in Belmont, and Elvis' hip thrusting warbling might not have been exactly what Shakespeare was going for. But the production did have some stand out points that really made me think. Firstly, the portrayal of foreignness and prejudice in such a modern setting was troubling and unavoidable. I spoke with my mum for a long time after this about the way  the play outlined stereotyped racism - even though we may no longer racially mock the Spanish, or the Moroccans, racial and religious stereotyping is certainly not dead, and the audience was starkly reminded of this throughout the performance.

The final scene was another triumph for this production. Bearing in mind I saw this way back in January, this scene is still vivid in my mind, which is always a true testament to any performance. What has always struck me about Merchant is the apparent unhappiness of all the couples at the end, no one seems very invested in each other - everyone's got what/who they want but suddenly it's totally unfulfilling. At the Almeida this translated into a closing sequence of Portia teetering on a high heel, performing something between a ballet sequence and a slow motion breakdown. Making it all the more haunting, the characters she circled - Bassanio and Antonio, Lorenzo and Jessica, Gratiano and Nerissa - alternated between staring blankly outside the stage space and awkwardly at one another. Following a comedic and extravagant two hours and a half, I was left with an empty and uncomfortable taste in my mouth. This is exactly how I feel every time I re-read the playtext, after the triumphant celebration of the trial scene, the spats between the couples over Portia and Nerissa's rings leaves a gaping awkwardness that the play apparently runs out of time to fill or resolve. This production ended on the perfect note of questionable happiness and uncertain love matches and friendships.

These aren't my highlights as such, they were really the two things that struck me about the performance. The one thing that did jar for me was the transformation of the casket plot into a game show - I understand the sentiment but ultimately it confused the plot and made it more complicated than it needed to be. Aside from what I've mentioned, and the individual performances - none of which I can majorly fault - the performance was more or less a bit of fun. But there's nothing wrong with that, and going for fun rather than super serious in terms of updating an early modern play is often the most successful way of doing it. Even those of us who are seriously the seriouest of the serious Shakespeare scholars need a bit of fun once in a while.