The Merchant of Venice: up there with the Bard’s most hotly discussed works, thanks to its antisemitic themes and reductive Jewish stereotypes. What to do with these plays that are peppered with problematic, outdated ideas? Do we simply bin them, banishing them as relics of the past with no place in a progressive (ahem) society, or rather do we attempt to reframe, to mine new meaning from dusty texts?
It’s the latter camp that The Globe’s new production at the Sam Wanamaker Theatre falls into, spearheaded by Jewish director Abigail Graham, who thoughtfully explores the dynamics of social elitism that still dominate our society. We land in modern-day (but candle-lit, of course) London, where Bassanio (played with appropriate swagger by Michael Marcus) and his boozed-up crew greet us, dressed in cool linen suits in soft pastel hues (costume supervision from Alexandra Kharibian). It’s an engagingly raucous introduction, although accompanied by a live version of The Black Eyed Peas’ I’ve Got A Feeling which jars a tad with the tone of the rest of the production (I’ll forgive it, as the band led by Zac Gvi support beautifully throughout).
