Dying Flames

The Merchant of Venice
Royal Shakespeare Company
The Observer

In The Merchant of Venice (Other Place, Stratford), Patrick Stewart’s Shylock, an unemphatic and unaccented businessman, is the most convincing I have seen. In the trial scene he follows the play’s comic logic and cringes. Silently he begs mercy to Antonio; nods assent when commanded to become a Christian. I don’t know if John Barton intended this to be as distressing as I found it; perhaps his production, like this year’s Shrew, is concerned to expose the play’s unpleasantness.

The whole Shylock menage is authoritatively handled with a silkily tormenting Tubal (Raymond Westwell) and a silk-hatted one-man band of a Launcelot Gobbo (Hilton McRae)- like Harpo Marx given voice. Marjorie Bland’s Portia reacts beautifully to her suitors from a distance, but on closer acquaintance freezes over; John Nettles, however, effectively conquers his accustoms sneer as Bassanio.