The Merchant of Venice

Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice is a choleric, cynical play.

First, of course, there is the ugly anti-Semitism. Shylock, more frequently known as "The Jew," has spent his life being called "Jew cur" and other such lovely epithets. His anger has been simmering for years, and why shouldn't he require of Antonio a pound of flesh? Antonio has no problem taking a metaphysical, emotional pound or two from Shylock; even in the role of financial supplicant, Antonio harangues and criticizes Shylock. (If Antonio possessed even the most basic of good manners, the plot would not be set in motion.)

Then Shakespeare depicts Shylock as more upset at the loss of his ducats than of his daughter (though Shylock is arguably hiding the loss he cannot face by focusing on the loss he can). By the end of the play, Shakespeare has stripped Shylock of everything he loves and believes in. The bigoted, self-satisfied Antonio, on the other hand, gets a happy ending.

Continuing his choleric mood, Shakespeare has little use for love in this play. Portia, the brilliant, emotional Portia (who somehow manages to become a knowledgeable lawyer on the trip from Belmont to Venice), responds to her true love Bassanio by tricking him into betraying her. Even though she has seen him totally devastated, even though he has just almost lost his best friend Antonio to a gruesome death (for which he is at least somewhat responsible!), she uses her disguise to pressure and deceive him. Is she jealous of his love for his best friend? Possibly. Is she just upset and angry? Possibly. Is she merely manipulative by nature? Possibly. None of the options is anything but ugly.

And why would Nerissa then trick her great love as well? To show that true love is impossible? Or that men can't be trusted? Perhaps. And what of Jessica and Lorenzo? Did they ever love each other, really, for even a moment? The only true love in this play is that between the ne'er-do-well Bassanio and the arrogant Antonio.

The Merchant of Venice was initially termed a comedy, I guess because the romantic leads end up together and the non-Jews get to live happily ever after. At the performance I saw, the European gentleman standing next to me (three hours is a long time to stand, by the way), chortled uproariously as Shylock was forced to his knees to be baptized as a Christian. It was only self-control and theatre etiquette that stopped me from turning to him and demanding, "Just what exactly is funny?"

The current production, smoothly directed by Daniel Sullivan and extremely well-acted by Al Pacino, Lily Rabe, and the rest of the company, gives The Merchant of Venice as good a showing as I could imagine it receiving.

One last thing: as I looked at the orchestra section in front of me, I was astonished to realize that everyone there, every single person, had spend a minimum of $131.50 per ticket. Some probably spent over $200. Isn't that kind of . . . insane? And isn't it kind of disgusting that dinner and a Broadway show for a couple costs as much as the average yearly income in India? And who are the usurers when credit cards charge as much as 30% interest, legally? Who are the villains when banks push ridiculous mortgages and then take people's homes when the poor fools fall for the banks' dishonest sales pitches? What would Shakespeare think of today's attitudes toward money? What would Shylock?

Notes from Underground

Dostoevsky's grim novella is here blasted to unexpectedly brilliant life in a stage adaptation by Robert Woodruff and the amazing actor Bill Camp. The unnamed Man poses a test: "Is it possible to be perfectly candid with oneself?" Camp uses movement like a dancer, speaking chapter and verse with a raised arm or a tumble down the stairs. And he talks, and he talks, twistedly and unlikeably yet with massive force, for close to two hours. It's a stunning performance, fitted into a masterfully conceived staging enlivened by Peter Nigrini's projections. No, you don't need to have read the book. Yes, come prepared to be moved, even shaken. Like Büchner with the even-earlier Woyzeck, Dostoevsky thrusts a proto-modernist fist from the deep past into our modern-day world of freedom and relative plenty. Has the human condition fundamentally changed? Signs point to no.

Excerpted from Theater Review (NYC): Notes from Underground on Blogcritics. Also be sure to see Wendy Caster's review below.

Sondheim! The Birthday Concert (DVD Review)

Wow!

Last March a few thousand people were lucky enough to experience the truly staggering Sondheim birthday celebration at the New York Philharmonic. Many who saw it (most?) judged it one of the most thrilling evenings they had ever spent in a theatre (I was one of those fortunate people). And now, through the miracle of modern technology, that amazing event can be revisited, over and over again, forever.

I was a tad nervous putting the disc in the DVD player. Could the recording possibly live up to my memory of the event? No. But yes. No, because live is live, and there is nothing like it. But yes, because the pictures and sound are clear and vivid, because the beauty of the performances has been captured, and because I am so grateful that this wonderful record of this wonderful evening exists! I am old enough to remember life before DVDs, before video recordings, before cable. I remember setting my alarm clock for two in the morning to catch a show or movie that might never be on again. I remember trying to memorize live performances, knowing that there might not even be an album. I do not take this DVD for granted.

If forced at gunpoint to identify my favorite performances, I might be able to get it down to a handful:

• Marin Mazzie: "Losing My Mind."
• John McMartin: "The Road You Didn't Take."
• Bernadette Peters: "Not a Day Goes By."
• Mandy Patinkin: "Finishing the Hat."
• Scores of Broadway performers: "Sunday."

But how could I leave out Donna Murphy singing "Could I Leave You?", or Audra McDonald singing "The Glamorous Life," or McDonald and Nathan Gunn singing "Too Many Mornings"? How could I exclude Patti LuPone's "Ladies Who Lunch" or Elaine Stritch jumping up and down while declaring that she is, indeed, still here? What about Peters and Patinkin recreating "Move On"? It was evening of highlight after highlight, or, as a friend of mine put it, an evening of 11:00 numbers.

Of course, the event wasn't, and the DVD isn't, perfect. Producer-director-writer Lonnie Price, as he always does, littered the show with juvenile, downright-painful gags and running "jokes." And some of his editing choices are flat-out annoying, as when he cuts to the orchestra during "Losing My Mind," a delicate song of subtle build during which Mazzie's nonsinging moments are as important as her singing ones. Or when he interrupts the flow of the dancing in "America" with odd and awkward and all-too-frequent cuts. But if Price's weaknesses are the price (pun unintended?) of getting to enjoy an event and a DVD this wonderful, they are a small enough price (hmm) to pay.

Thanks are owed to producers Ellen M. Krass Productions and Thirteen, in association with WNET.org, for giving us this precious DVD. It would be nice if there were some extras, but, really, it's a treasure.

Oh, and I did I mention that that Sondheim guy is brilliant?

One Night With Joan

Photo: Holly Caster

Joan Collins is a force to be reckoned with. She turned down Darryl Zanuck's (staggeringly coarse) sexual advances, even though she knew she might be risking her career. She responded to a Joan Crawford snub by mentioning that Collins' mother was such a Crawford fan that she named Joan after her. When her then-husband lost his job, she went back to performing to support the family (they had a total of six children), starring in such classics as The Stud and The Bitch. She wore her hair with bangs and did so many nude scenes that Oscar Levant commented that the only part of her he hadn't seen was her forehead. Oh, and her first husband tried to sell her to a sheik.

These are only some of the many stories that the effervescent Collins shares in her night of reminiscences at Feinstein's at the Regency. Still glamorous in her late 70s (and married to a man in his 40s), she is entertaining and in her own way a role model: she began fashioning her life to her own design in the days when women were supposed to force themselves into society's pre-assigned template, and she still lives life on her own terms.

On Tuesday Collins clearly had opening night jitters, and she would do well to tell her stories rather than act them. She also might get more laughs by underplaying rather than overplaying her punch lines. But, hey, she's Joan Collins. And if you're a fan, you'll have a great time.

All the Things You Are: Jerome Kern

The Broadway Close Up series at Merkin Hall presented a lovely evening of Jerome Kern songs last Monday. There was no patter--just luscious singing. Director Denis Jones set up some of the songs as entertaining or touching vignettes (never letting his ideas overshadow the lyricists' intent) and had the show moving like clockwork (fluid, graceful clockwork). Kate Baldwin, Heidi Blickenstaff, Colin Donnell, Rebecca Luker, Graham Rohat, and Matthew Scott presented over 30 of Kern's songs, from his biggest hits to some little-known wonders. And they sang unmiked! The evening wasn't perfect. There were some songs that could have been sung better--or louder--and some of the interpretations didn't quite work. The singers sometimes spent too much time looking at each other, rather than the audience, probably making it difficult for people in the rear of the theatre to hear. But the positives far, far, far outweighed the negatives, and the overall effect was magical. Kudos to director Jones, musical director David Loud, artistic director Sean Hartley, and particularly to pianist Jihwan Kim, who played nonstop--and beautifully--for 90 intermissionless minutes.

The Libertine

Photo: DfxDen

Stephen Jeffreys' comedy-drama is a delicious throwback to Restoration times. With Cromwellian Puritanism a thing of the past, the return of the monarchy was an optimal time for an omnisexual, charismatic, downright outrageous character like John Wilmot, Second Earl of Rochester, to barrel into the history books. Eric Tucker fleetly directs a nimble cast of well-drawn characters, vividly evoking the scramble that goes on backstage at a theater, the clash of wits at the public house, and carefree rutting in a dark prostitutes' alley.

Patricia Duran is wonderful as a proto-feminist Mrs. Barry; Tom O'Keefe is superbly in-the-moment in the dual roles of Rochester's wry friend Charles Sackville and the smug star actor Harry Harris; and the fine Libby Arnold as the prostitute Jane has a lovely scene battling an annoying inclination to actually care about her client the Earl. The production's flaw arises from the Earl's complexity. Not having seen the play before—not even the movie version with Johnny Depp—I can't say how others have approached the lead role, but Joseph W. Rodriguez fails to entirely convince, because his Rochester lacks the charm the real Earl must have oozed.

The same cannot be said of the overall production. Rambunctious and clever, it has many virtues. Above all, the play transports us to a lofty realm of wit and ribaldry very few modern playwrights even attempt,

Excerpted from Theater Review (NYC): The Libertine on Blogcritics.