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Shylock
dragged into our modern-day mire
THE MERCHANT OF VENICE
The Clerkenwell Theatre
IN 1814, Edmund Kean – the Laurence Olivier of the 19th
century – performed the merciless Jew, Shylock, to a packed
Drury Lane.
The writer William Hazlitt reported Kean’s “lightness
of step,” and “an airy buoyancy and self-possession
different from the sullen, dogged gaol-delivery of the traditional
Shylocks of the stage”.
The German poet and satirist Heinrich Heine saw the same performance.
He reported how a woman rose from the stalls and shouted “The
Jew is wronged!” during one famous speech.
Shylock had moved from a “popular bugbear” to a “favourite
of the philosophical section of the audience”. Ever since,
Shylock’s revenge has been read in the same light as the
Christian’s hypocrisy.
I am not sure what Hazlitt, Heine and Kean would have made of
this performance. The Big Wheel theatre company have dragged
the Merchant into our modern-day mire with laptops, happy-slapping
and unmentionable pop music.
A-level students in the audience were made to stare themselves
in the mirror as a brash set of Christians entered a stage strewn
with Starbucks cups and McDonald’s wrappers, squabbling
with each other and leering over lads’ mags. They are truly
grotesque and I longed for Shylock (Andrew Stephen) to start
whetting his knife. Shylock has all the best lines and Stephen,
easily the most accomplished actor in the cast, stood out from
the crowd.
Richard Unwin brought some depth to the nonentity Gratiano,
but there was something automaton in his delivery. Unwin admits
in the programme notes that his lowest ebb was playing a zombie
at Thorpe Park for Halloween. I think the experience has had
a lasting effect on him.
A special mention must go to Matt Broad, who played the hard
up Antonio and the clown Gobbo. Broad’s range of impersonations
– as Sean Connery’s James Bond, Al Pacino’s Scarface
and Yoda from Star Wars – at times outshone Stephen’s
Shylock.
Until April 8
020 7689 8670
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