Jonathan Pryce in Merchant of Venice

[JBroadway]

Posted: 4/21/16 at 3:09pm

I just bought a ticket to see Jonathan Pryce in The Merchant of Venice at the Lincoln Center Festival this summer. I love Pryce as an actor, as well as the play itself, so I will be happy to see it regardless. But I'm curious to hear if anyone has any thoughts on this production. It doesn't seem like there is much buzz around it yet. Did anyone see it at the Globe? Anyone else planning to see it here or in DC?

 

It's interesting that it's playing at Lincoln Center's jazz space. Do they usually put on theatre productions in there? 

[imeldasturn]

Posted: 4/21/16 at 4:30pm

I'm planning to go see it at the globe in october, i can't wait!

[themysteriousgrowl]

Posted: 4/21/16 at 4:59pm

 

OMG, JB, thank you for posting about this. Pryce is one of my favorite actors, and MERCHANT is one of my favorite plays. I didn’t even know this was happening.

[Wick3]

Posted: 5/1/16 at 11:30am

That play is one of my mom's favorite Shakespearean plays so I plan on buying her and my dad tickets for Mother's Day. 

Does anyone know that theater at Time Warner center? I was thinking of getting mezzanine seats or is the theater small enough that any seat (even the $65 ones) is a good seat? Any advice would be much appreciated.

I plan to be in London later this fall and hope to see it at the Globe too! Standing room is still 5 pounds right?

[JBroadway]

Posted: 7/24/16 at 9:20am

I just saw this last night, and still not entirely sure what to think. As I said earlier. I'm a big admirer of Pryce's work, and was very excited to see him take on this role. 

I'm warring with myself a little here, because on one hand, Pryce's performance demonstrated how capable of an actor he is. He was clearly feeling the text, and performed the role with clarity, emotion and nuance. His performance was not badly executed by any means. Still, something was missing that I can't quite put on my finger on. I saw Pryce in The Caretaker, and I found that performance to be much more interesting than his Shylock. Perhaps it is the director's fault? In The Caretaker I thought he achieved a great balance between sinister and pathetic, and I wish he had brought more of that sinisterness to Shylock. 

I think the production overall was good, but kind of inconsistent.  ***SOME PRODUCTION SPOILERS IN THIS PARAGRAPH *** I thought the audience participation was incredibly stupid, though perhaps I can see it working better at the Globe. The suggested homosexuality of Antonio had the potential to be interesting, but just felt tossed in. I think a directorial decision like that should feel more fully realized, and more present earlier in the show. 

However, I thought the epilogue was stunning, and perhaps the highlight of the production, though I think it would have felt even better in a more more stunning production.

I'm interested in how this play works as a comedy in today's world. The director clearly wanted the play's humor to shine through, which is reasonable, given that it was written as a comedy, but the melding of the drama and comedy feels very off. Part of the fault is Shakespeare's of course, and we see that in other plays of his such as The Winter's Tale and Measure for Measure. And of course, in today's world it's very difficult to handle the comedy alongside the anti-semitism. However, the degree to which the director focused on the humor felt weird to me. 

This was the first time I've ever seen this play live, though I've read it and seen the Al Pacino film. In seeing it live, I was surprised to find that Shylock really comes across as more of a supporting character than leading. In fact, the part really isn't even that big at all. Was that just this production, or is that usually the case? I also never realized that of all the male characters, Bassanio really feels like the most leading, even more than Antonio. But again, maybe it was just this production. 

 

Anyone else here see it? Curious to hear others' thoughts. 

[imeldasturn]

Posted: 7/24/16 at 11:07am

I thought the audience participation was incredibly stupid, though perhaps I can see it working better at the Globe. 
 

Emma Rice, the new artistic director of the Shakespeare's Globe, is a big fan of audience partecipation since this was a thing in Shakespeare's time. Now, I haven't seen this production yet, but she managed to put it in everything that has been staged at the Globe in the last 6 months. Sometimes it works, other times it doesn't. 

[wonkit]

Posted: 7/24/16 at 11:17am

I saw the matinee yesterday and I was surprised that it was merely a consistently workmanlike production that moved smoothly and presented most of the the text in a direct manner. Pryce was fine but did not bring any particular depth to the character. His highly emotional moments seemed empty somehow.

SPOILERS

 

 

 

 

 

I did NOT like the epilogue. I hate it when directors think they know better than Shakespeare. The play ends with the resolution of the ring promise, not with Shylock center stage. And the use of the Jessica character in that epilogue is nonsensical. Jessica renounces her father and her faith, and there is nothing in the play to suggest that she is unhappy with her decision or regrets joining the Christian community and loving Lorenzo. Shylock is not the main character in this play, and in fact the part is quite modest in length and the character is not on stage for much of the action. The play is about Portia, and Shylock and the bond theme represent only a third of the plot. In fact, as the play itself indicates, Shylock may not even be the merchant in the title.

[South Fl Marc]

Posted: 7/24/16 at 11:24am

So exactly what happens in the epilogue?

[10086sunset]

Posted: 7/24/16 at 12:02pm

Love Pryce but must confess I wished I liked this better.

[wonkit]

Posted: 7/24/16 at 3:14pm

SPOILER? THE RUN IS VIRTUALLY COMPLETE

 

 

 

 

 

After the end of the play as written, you are shown Shylock being baptized, crying out as the water runs down his face. Jessica is kneeling stage right front, keening and singing (I believe) the kol knidre.  Again, this gives Shylock the final tableau, when Shakespeare pushes him off stage fairly decisively after his loss in court and the judge's decree that he must convert. Also, there is no indication whatsoever that Jessica is upset, much less this upset. Nice coup de theatre but most definitely inconsistent with the play as written.

[A Director]

Posted: 7/24/16 at 6:12pm

Of course Shylock is a supporting character, he appears in only five scenes. On the other hand, actors like Pryce, love the role because it is a very showy part.

Shylock is in the merchant of the title.  When the play was first printed in 1600, the title page read, "The most excellent History of the Merchant on Venice, with the extreme cruelty of Shylock the Jew towards the said Merchant."  Shylock in not a merchant.

In the 1623 Folio, the play appears with the comedies.  However none of Shakespeare's plays are pure comedies or pure tragedies.  There is comedy in the serious plays and serious in the comic plays.

I have seen productions of Merchant were Antonio's attraction to Bassani is emphasized and production were it is not.

[wonkit]

Posted: 7/24/16 at 7:49pm

The title you quote suggests that Shylock is NOT  the merchant.

[ChairinMain]

Posted: 7/24/16 at 9:05pm

Shylock is not a merchant at all. He's a moneylender. The Merchant of Venice is indisputably Antonio. That doesn't mean Shylock is not the best part in the play...he is the star role, and always has been. Look at a few other Shakespeare plays: Cymbeline barely appears in the play that bares his name. Julius Caesar appears in only four scenes (once as a ghost) and dies halfway through the play. Henry IV takes a backseat to both his son and Falstaff. And don't even get me started on Henry VI. 

[wonkit]

Posted: 7/24/16 at 10:39pm

Shylock has not "always" been the star part. Until the major actor/managers of the 19th century, Shylock was a small caricature and was even played as a "clown" part.  He may be for many the most "memorable" part because major actors are willing to play him, but the part itself is not a principal one. 

[ChairinMain]

Posted: 7/25/16 at 2:51am

You got me..."Always" is a generalization. However, I contend when talking about Shakespearian performance practice, especially of the less popular plays, what documentation we have often begins with the actor managers of the 19th century: these plays were not very well-performed in the 17th and 18th Centuries, and of course when they were it was often in highly altered forms. 

We don't know whether or not Shylock was played as serious or comic in Shakespeare's day (I personally suspect the later), but we do not he was usually played as a comic ethnic stereotype in a popular adapted version beginning in 1701.  The actor/manager Charles Macklin played him as a serious villain in 1749 and this was one of his signature roles. The next major actor to really make the part his own was Edmund Kean, in the 1810s and he played it sympathetically, and that's really been the mode ever since. 

So, while, we're not entirely sure of the 1st 100 years of the play's existence, the vast majority of the next three hundred years have Shylock played by principal tragedians. 

 

In any case, that's not really the point....my point was is that Shylock, despite not being the title character, has the largest, showiest male role in the play. Shylock has 352 lines, Bassanio has 334. Antonio, the title character has 188. Portia has 574, which puts her in the top five for female Shakespeare characters, outranked only by Rosalind, Cleopatra and Innogen in Cymbeline. Whoever played Shylock, Shakespeare must have had a fantastic Boy actor at his disposal. 

Updated On: 7/25/16 at 02:51 AM

[rjm516]

Posted: 7/25/16 at 4:21pm

I saw it at the Globe and he was GREAT. So worth seeing. What a ledge. But, I hate this play so much. 

[homeimp2]

Posted: 7/25/16 at 8:10pm

Why bother to go it? Christopher Isherwood revealed just about every element of this production of Merchant in his review. No need to discuss in such detail. This is why I read the critics after I see a show, and then, only if I want to. (I'm in Toronto now and won't be back for awhile, so I did read this review)

[M.O.A.I.]

Posted: 8/7/16 at 2:34pm

Anyone else see this at Chicago Shakespeare? I thought it was absolutely smashing, through and through. Going in, I was wary of the tacked-on baptism ending and Antonio and Sebastian’s kiss, but I thought both worked seamlessly. I thought the opening ten-minute party sequence with house lights up perversely genius – one minute the ensemble had the audience clapping and dancing along with them, making them complicit when the next minute the same revelers beat two Jewish elders onstage. None of the additions seemed shoehorned in, and refocusing the finale on Shylock and Jessica did not unbalance the play as I feared it might.

That’s mainly due to the elder Pryce’s absolutely towering performance. He is for most of his stage time calm, composed, even mild-mannered, logically moving through the laborious bureaucratic process of exacting justice as he might complete a moneylending transaction. There is nothing self-indulgent here – which makes the moments where the tyrant, the martyr, the broken man emerge all the more moving. Rachel Pickup is also exquisite as Portia – sharp, funny, and tender.

The Prince of Arragon was perhaps a little broad for my taste, as was the rousing but distracting audience participation bit. But overall just a marvelous production. So lucky to have seen one of my idols onstage.

Spotted Robert Falls in the audience as well, and overheard him explaining the plot to his companion at intermission.