Shifting Shakespeare into the Thirties proves a masterclass in adaptation in The Merchant of Venice 1936 at Watford Palace Theatre
“If you prick us, do we not bleed?”
There is just not a lot that’s delicate about Brigid Larmour and Tracy-Ann Oberman’s adaptation of The Merchant of Venice right here however generally that’s what is required. Placing The Merchant of Venice 1936 squarely in the course of the rise of fascism in Thirties Britain, among the many floor glam of the Mosleys and the Mitfords, speaks loudly to the worrying developments in up to date society of a specific model of anti-semitism and intolerance.
Such is the forcefulness of its portrayal of ‘homegrown’ fascist thought that the truth that Shylock is a girl right here, performed by Oberman, virtually doesn’t register. But because the manufacturing progresses, it absolutely does, a pawnbroker and single mom, her matriarchal vitality rising in response to the anti-semitic rhetoric launched at her, now tinged with misogyny too. The outrage that grows in her thus feels extra earned than ever, an instinctive response to the societal decline round her.
The embodiment of this comes by way of most in Raymond Coulthard’s bullyboy Antonio, a Blackshirt (regardless of being a raging homo as Jeremy Irons so memorably did in Al Pacino’s movie model) who sickeningly cheers the courtroom choice together with his bros. And Hannah Morrish’s Mitford-esque Portia layers in new which means to her journey to elevated energy and affect on the expense of any and everybody she doesn’t take care of.
Liz Cooke’s design makes use of greyness and glass to haunting impact, even when the introduction of projections feels a bit of overegged. But Larmour’s manufacturing does little else mistaken, evoking one thing of Sarah Phelps’ transformative variations of Agatha Christie in its massively efficient reinvention of how we see the play. And given she was just lately scoring the lolz in Noises Off, Oberman actually is in one thing of a purple patch, significantly as her work right here attracts from her circle of relatives’s experiences. Hauntingly good.