Playwright: William Shakespeare. At: Shakespeare's Globe at Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Navy Pier. Tickets: 312-595-5600; ChicagoShakes.com/merchant. Runs through: Aug. 14
This 10-day run is sold out but seek tickets anyway, perhaps cancellations or the waiting list. The Merchant of Venice is freshly deep, darkly lavish, tensely acted and revealing, as carefully edited and crisply directed by Jonathan Munby. Its buoyant comic scenes work brilliantly, alternating with the profound humiliation of Shylock ( deliberate, subdued but full-blooded Jonathan Pryce ) and bigotry's triumph.
Perhaps it's coincidence, but Shakespeare's two plays set in Veniceboth staged at Chicago Shakespeare Theater within monthsexpress the ugly racial and religious bigotry of Elizabethan England. Some argue Shakespeare attempted to counter bigotry but I'm not convinced. Elizabethan law prohibited Jews and Moors from living in England, so Shakespeare quite probably never met either a Jew or a Black man. But Venice, a global mercantile and military power, was far more polyglot than London and so-called "aliens," such as Jews and Blacks, could rise to wealth and distinction within prescribed limits. Thus, Othello the Moor is the hero of his eponymous tragedy, and Shylock the Jew is the dominating antagonist of The Merchant of Venice. To create these characters, Shakespeare embraced Elizabethan stereotypes and prejudices expressed in some of the vilest language he ever penned.
This production immediately suggests the polyglot cultures of Venice in a prologue of Jewish-style klezmer clarinet music ( Jules Maxwell, composer ) juxtaposed with soberly-costumed ( Mike Britton ) Venetian gentlemen cavorting in carnival masks. Culture clash is reinforced via snatches of Italian, Hebrew and Yiddish added to Shakespeare's text ( although 16th-century Italian Jews probably did not speak Yiddish ). This is brilliant interpretation, quickly hinting at the tense swirl of opposing forces.
As the play progresses, the anti-Semitism of Antonio ( Dominic Mafham, an affable bigot as the title merchant ) and his younger cohorts is abundantly clear in word and action, as is Shylock's turn to vengeance only after his daughter, Jessica ( darkly handsome Phoebe Pryce ), abandons and robs him to marry a Christian. These points, not always as clear as they must be, are perfectly illumined by Munby & Co. A powerful epilogue shows Shylock's forced baptism as Jessicacrucifix at her neck but praying in Hebrewcomprehends the destruction she's brought upon her father and her own isolation in her new community.
This is Shakespeare at its vigorous, involving and clear-rendered best. So much is pitch-perfect: the comedy scenes of Lancelot Gobbo ( Stefan Adegbola deftly leading audience participation ), the romantic passages of Jessica and Christian hubby Lorenzo ( Andy Apollo ), the cliquish male bonding andabove allthe unreasoned injustices against perceived outsiders, so very apt for this country today. Even Antoniomiddle-aged, unwed and possibly gayis an outsider in a heteronormative society that virtually requires marriage for Portia ( a lithe Rachel Pickup ) and Bassanio ( an engaging Dan Fredenburgh ), both past their youthful blush.