October 24, 2006
This is an excellent production: fierce, direct, sharp, funny. It has been judiciously stripped of all the tedious “comic” scenes. It transcends the usual limitations of student drama – poor production values and weak actors in minor roles – because of its clear vision of the play’s central conflicts and two towering performances.
Annabelle Lupton dominates the stage, a confident, charismatic Portia with beautiful, sparkling dark eyes and a glorious voice of incredible range and power. She was chilling as 'Balthazar', systematically demolishing and humiliating Shylock in court, and she was absolutely terrifying in the final scene – what a Lady Bracknell she will make one day! – warning Antonio to keep his sticky mitts off her husband.
The other tour de force is from Ian Runacres as Shylock. Shylock epitomizes the trickiness of this play, not one of Shakespeare’s most enlightened. To sympathize or not to sympathize? Clearly Shylock has had a rough time. Antonio and his chums are anti-Semitic racist bastards, who have routinely insulted him, bullied him, and damaged his business. You can’t blame Shylock for wanting to get his own back. But compare Shylock’s reasons for pursuing vengeance with, say, Hamlet’s, and you might feel that slicing a pound of flesh from Antonio’s chest is perhaps going a bit far. Ian Runacres makes sense of Shylock. He shows us, first, a smooth city banker in a sharp suit, an arch-manipulator, very much in control of his passions. Yes, he hates Antonio, with plenty of justification, but the weird contract starts out as a macabre joke, possibly a way of giving Antonio a taste of his own medicine. It’s Jessica’s elopement with Lorenzo that tips Shylock over the edge. He was walking on thin ice over a lake of grief and rage; now he plunges in. For this Shylock, it isn’t that money has taken the place of more natural affections; it is that he cannot bear his daughter’s betrayal. He’s a man blasted and warped and consumed by his rage and pain; and he’s going to take it out on Antonio. It’s a performance of incredible depth, subtlety and power, lit by flashes of black humour. I can’t wait to see this actor in other roles. As it was, the courtroom clashes of this Shylock and Portia are electrifying, Shylock’s defeat heart-breaking.
Best of the rest – Hannah Richards as a spirited Nerissa – and, together, Maanas Jain as Bassanio and Tommy Seddon (who also directed) as Antonio. There’s no scenery to speak of so visually you’re very focussed on the actors, and these two make an extraordinary spectacle – a tall, über-Aryan blond Antonio, and a dark, delicate, almost girlish Bassanio with a face of ravishing, exotic beauty. It pointed out, without undue emphasis, that the love between these two goes far beyond the common bond of friendship, and that the play is also about Bassanio’s love for Portia (whom he blatantly married for her money) supplanting his love for Antonio. This is what the business of the rings in the last act is all about. Definitely a must-see.
Annabelle Lupton dominates the stage, a confident, charismatic Portia with beautiful, sparkling dark eyes and a glorious voice of incredible range and power. She was chilling as 'Balthazar', systematically demolishing and humiliating Shylock in court, and she was absolutely terrifying in the final scene – what a Lady Bracknell she will make one day! – warning Antonio to keep his sticky mitts off her husband.
The other tour de force is from Ian Runacres as Shylock. Shylock epitomizes the trickiness of this play, not one of Shakespeare’s most enlightened. To sympathize or not to sympathize? Clearly Shylock has had a rough time. Antonio and his chums are anti-Semitic racist bastards, who have routinely insulted him, bullied him, and damaged his business. You can’t blame Shylock for wanting to get his own back. But compare Shylock’s reasons for pursuing vengeance with, say, Hamlet’s, and you might feel that slicing a pound of flesh from Antonio’s chest is perhaps going a bit far. Ian Runacres makes sense of Shylock. He shows us, first, a smooth city banker in a sharp suit, an arch-manipulator, very much in control of his passions. Yes, he hates Antonio, with plenty of justification, but the weird contract starts out as a macabre joke, possibly a way of giving Antonio a taste of his own medicine. It’s Jessica’s elopement with Lorenzo that tips Shylock over the edge. He was walking on thin ice over a lake of grief and rage; now he plunges in. For this Shylock, it isn’t that money has taken the place of more natural affections; it is that he cannot bear his daughter’s betrayal. He’s a man blasted and warped and consumed by his rage and pain; and he’s going to take it out on Antonio. It’s a performance of incredible depth, subtlety and power, lit by flashes of black humour. I can’t wait to see this actor in other roles. As it was, the courtroom clashes of this Shylock and Portia are electrifying, Shylock’s defeat heart-breaking.
Best of the rest – Hannah Richards as a spirited Nerissa – and, together, Maanas Jain as Bassanio and Tommy Seddon (who also directed) as Antonio. There’s no scenery to speak of so visually you’re very focussed on the actors, and these two make an extraordinary spectacle – a tall, über-Aryan blond Antonio, and a dark, delicate, almost girlish Bassanio with a face of ravishing, exotic beauty. It pointed out, without undue emphasis, that the love between these two goes far beyond the common bond of friendship, and that the play is also about Bassanio’s love for Portia (whom he blatantly married for her money) supplanting his love for Antonio. This is what the business of the rings in the last act is all about. Definitely a must-see.