THE HANGOVER REPORT – John Douglas Thompson gives a wrenching performance in Arin Arbus’s grim, probing production of THE MERCHANT OF VENICE

John Douglas Thompson, Maurice Jones, Yonatan Gebeyehu, Nate Miller, Alfredo Narciso, and Varín Ayala in Theatre for a New Audience’s production “The Merchant of Venice” (photo by Sara Krulwich).

Yesterday at the Polonsky Shakespeare Center, I caught the final performance of Theatre for a New Audience’s probing production of The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare. Although technically classified as a comedy, the play is steeped in ethically murky characters and situations, which makes it one of the most fascinating and hard to classify works in the Bard’s canon.

The timely, powerfully-acted modern dress staging by Arin Arbus – who has long been associated with TFANA – is perhaps the most deliberately scathing take on the play I’ve seen. As soon as you walk into the auditorium, you’re faced with Riccardo Hernandez’s monolithic and brutalist set, which immediately signals to the audience that it’s in for one grim evening. By casting a Black man (the great John Douglas Thompson) as the Jewish moneylender Shylock, she synonymies the play’s built-in anti-Semitism with racism against Blacks, thereby directly linking the play’s proceedings to the recent uptick in hate crimes towards Jews, as well as the formation of the the Black Lives Matter movement. Although all ends well for the play’s so called “good guys”, Ms. Arbus very clearly indicates that they actually aren’t very nice people (as opposed to merely suggesting it). Indeed, she blatantly highlights the homophobia, racism, sense of entitlement, and bullying (even rape culture is evoked) coursing through their society – not as subtext, but as a concrete presence in the play.

In the pivotal role of the vengeful, put-upon Shylock is Mr. Thompson, one of the New York’s great classical stage actors. In a deeply personal performance, he wrenchingly rails against anti-Semitism/racism with a ferocity that’s frightening and devastating. Over the years, Mr. Thompson has amassed quite the resume – largely in TFANA appearances under the direction of Ms. Arbus – and the actor can add his Shylock to the constellation of his memorable performances. Oh, how I pine for the day when he’s ready to play King Lear!

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

THE MERCHANT OF VENICE
Off-Broadway, Play
Theatre for a New Audience at the Polonsky Shakespeare Center
2 hours, 45 minutes (with one intermission)
Closed

Categories: Off-Broadway, Theater

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