The Merchant of Venice is the most problematic of all Shakespeare's so-called problem plays, and it's even more of a problem now than when he wrote it. Back in 1596, Jews had been banned from England for over 300 years, and they were the ideal bogeymen: strange, dangerous, exotic and alien. Depicting a Jew on the London stage was not unlike a 16th-century British artist painting a hippopotamus: the final portrait may not have been based in reality, but it was sensational.
These days almost every production of The Merchant makes it about antisemitism. The humanity wired into Shylock by Shakespeare unlocks caverns of prejudice in the other characters. And the disproportionate cruelty of his final humiliation is matched only by the naked glee with which the "Christians" mete it out.
Now, in a UK society where racist attacks on Jews have tripled in the last 18 months, what does a student production do with this hot, and very unkosher, potato?
In the case of director Cici Zhang, the answer is: perform the play. And that is a remarkably wise and original decision. In Zhang's production at the Pilch, Shylock comes across as Shakespeare wrote him. He is the villain for the first 90% of the play, and the victim for the last 10%. And Lara Machado's open and honest interpretation succeeds in showing Shylock as the villain without ever suggesting even a hint of an anti-Jewish reading. She gives him/her no Jewish stereotypical behaviour, and she eschews a Yiddish accent. Instead she speaks clearly and with conviction in her own natural, Irish (I think?) accent.
In Zhang's vision, The Merchant of Venice is a play about love and friendship, and the terrible compromises into which they can lead you. The set (and poster) is strewn with knotted ropes, some of them nooses, some of them holding little Venetian lights. Characters wind ropes around each other, binding with love, but also trapping and imprisoning. It's a completely refreshing approach, and it is clearly the work of a scholar with a deep and abiding adoration of the text.
And speaking of the text, The Merchant of Venice does have one of the most gloriously anachronistic lines in the Bard's entire canon, and it was great to see it here. Gratiano, upon observing a pointless act, says, "This is like the mending of highways in the summer, when the ways are fair enough". Some things never change.
Instead of finding performative outlets for those hoary Merchant themes of racism, commerce and pain, this production replaces them with a sense of poised artistry. There are frequent passages of directorial caprice, such as Portia's voice being echoed and drowned out by a barrage of evil whispers, a series of evocative dumb shows at the start, or Antonio's letter to Bassanio being read by both actors out loud, with Antonio's arm held out above his friend's head. Such passages run the risk of confusing watchers as much as intriguing them. I may not have known exactly what they were always intended to convey, but they brought a degree of distancing artificiality to the proceedings which constantly reminded you that you were watching a construct, an air-borne dagger of Elizabethan elegance.
One particularly poignant moment features Shylock silently putting out all the hanging candles while Lorenzo and Jessica perform their immortally beautiful "In such a night" scene. It might not fit with the style of the rest of the play, but this production is about choosing moments of visual poetry over theatrical consistency, and that suits me.
If there is a unifying concept to the symbolic episodes, and we are supposed to identify it, then I must admit it eluded me this evening. But that didn't stop me enjoying the strangeness of the presentation.
Less enjoyable was the music. Zhang has gone for an almost continuous soundtrack, which alternates between an ominous, deep throbbing when bad stuff is happening, and a gentle, lilting, summery jazz when love stuff is happening. The effect is to drag the mood towards two-dimensional obviousness rather than three-dimensional humanity. (It also makes the actors harder to hear.) When the music stops, the characters really sing. At one point, Jessica says, "I am never happy when I hear sweet music", and on this occasion I have to agree.
There are also some issues with pacing and intensity. Gaps between scenes are long blackouts that could simply have been filled by the next scene sweeping in, and some of the play's most visceral moments (like Shylock preparing to cut a pound of flesh from his enemy's chest) are presented on the same tonal level as the rest of the performance. It's as delicate as a wine glass's musical ring, but sometimes that glass has to smash.
But, taking into account that the cast at tonight's performance had to cover for two actors who were absent for medical reasons, this is a passionate, thoughtful, brave and refreshingly untimely production of an all-too-timely text. As the pounds of flesh pile up around the globe, Cici Zhang is still able to see beauty in this challenging play.