the merchant of venice
the stratford festival
the national post

I have seen some anti-Semitic Venetians in my time, but those in Stratford's new Merchant of Venice really take the cannoli.

In Richard Rose's fascinating if uneven production, done in modern costumes with Renaissance trimmings, they start the evening with what seems to be a parody of the Last Supper, and proceed to cavort around in carnival pig masks ideal for fantasy Jew-baiting.

The normally negligible character of Solanio (Bruce Dow) achieves unexpected prominence when he does his vicious impersonation of Shylock's laments over the loss of his daughter and his ducats. He leaves no doubt that it's the latter commodity that touches the Jew most dearly. Not that this same Solanio is all that charitable to his fellow Christians. He thinks himself snubbed by Antonio in the opening scene and seems to relish the merchant's ruin as keenly as Shylock does himself. The Jew is not the only one who can bear a grudge.

Antonio, finely played by Scott Wentworth, is a complex figure within whom gentlemanliness and generosity co- exist with sexual possessiveness over his friend Bassanio and an ingrained prejudice that seems religious and professional rather than racial. He calls Shylock not "gentle" but "Gentile Jew," rationalizing it with a quick and patronizing, "This Hebrew will turn Christian; he grows kind." Maybe it's the same religious emphasis that leads this production's Portia to object to the Prince of Morocco's "persuasion" rather than his "complexion," or maybe someone is just being chicken. But few people in this show are very nice.

Ron Kennell, an outstandingly funny Launcelot Gobbo, has his old blind father (Bernard Hopkins) in genuine distress with his false account of his own death. Gratiano (Gareth Potter) is a loudmouthed bigot, though not without charm when among friends. As for Lorenzo (Jean-Michel LeGal), his eyes light up when he elopes with Jessica, not at her but at the casket of cash she's stolen from Shylock: for him, too, it's the ducats, not the daughter.

There's also some straightforward xenophobia. Portia's mocking catalogue of her foreign wooers is much enlivened by having them all present on plinths, striking exaggerated national poses and talking in exaggerated national accents. The Princes of Morocco (Jamie Robinson) and Arragon (Tim MacDonald), when choosing among the caskets, parade their ethnic foibles at full cartooned length, though at the expense of their moments of sober self-realization. The stage is alight with tensions and animosities in a production that probes as sharply into the text as this season's King Lear -- and with more imagination.

Unfortunately, the character on whom much of this should converge is a smudge. Graham Greene's Shylock is an outwardly assimilated businessman (his friend Tubal looks far more Orthodox) with a cantankerous sense of his own worth. His response when Antonio's bond becomes forfeit is to have himself measured for a new suit. (Is there a legal pun here?) His body language is excellent: Watch his mock cringe before Antonio and his real cringe, with a fatalistic shrug attached, before the Duke. But he cannot handle the verse, which he crumbles into disconnected, unintelligible little packages. He's stronger in the prose of "hath not a Jew eyes," which emerges here not as a timeless plea for tolerance but as a perverse statement of equality. "If you wrong us, shall we not revenge?": I've never heard that emphasis before, and it's very powerful.

The show's star curtain call goes, however, not to Shylock but to Portia and Bassanio, and it's their play: a darkly witty piece about love and its handmaiden, jealousy. Severn Thompson's Portia, in a most unbecoming dress that's short in front and bunched behind, starts out giggly and golden-girlish. She gathers strength as she watches Sean Arbuckle's Armani-clad Bassanio, a disarmingly sincere opportunist, choose the right casket. (She's given him some unsubtle musical hints beforehand.) Her offer to help rescue Antonio is a competitive bid to prove her love stronger than his. And Antonio responds in kind. After Portia, in male disguise, has saved his non- kosher bacon, he insists that Bassanio surrender his ring in payment, precisely because it was a gift from his wife. You can see this sad, gay man perk up at the idea, egged on by all the boys in Venice.

So the last scene of newlywed squabbles, graced also by a promising Nerissa from Raquel Duffy, packs an unusual and many- layered punch. A final attempt to draw all the threads together, though, overreaches itself. Sara Topham's excellent Jessica ends the play fearful and alone, with a Hebrew hymn reproaching her over the sound system. Directors are always trying to read these regrets into the Jew's renegade daughter, and one can understand why, but there's no textual evidence for them. I hate to say it, but Shakespeare's Jessica seems perfectly happy among all those rich and lucky Christians.