Michael Switzer’s production for FULLHOUSE Theatre Company goes in for its own pound of flesh from the mostly young cast by adding an additional challenge to performance. The casting of the three pairs of lovers – Jessica and Lorenzo, Nerissa and Gratiano, Portia and Bassanio – will change nightly depending on the audience vote.

The rest of the cast remains fixed, but as most of the pairs of lovers encounter the other characters at some time or other it must make for renewed energy each night, or at least the odd shiver of uncertainty for performers. All in all, it certainly makes for fast-paced, lively viewing.

What else it does for the audience, apart from making them feel involved, is make more extreme the comic, even farcical, elements of the love plots at one end, with much falling over each other (the young men) and bending over in giggles (the young women), while pushing out the more serious strains of racism and revenge into almost Jacobean malice.

The three young men, Henry Ashby, David Bowers-Mason and Michael Gaastra, who are auctioned off for the parts of lovers at the beginning of the play, tumbling and clowning aside, give strong performances and excellent diction.

The three young women, also randomly selected, look and move beautifully but all have a tendency to chew their lines and lose clarity. The only characters who are not stock or functional to the comedy, then, are Shylock and Antonio, the Merchant himself.

In many ways Antonio is the most difficult part to pull off in this play: on the one hand there’s his extreme generosity to Bassanio, in borrowing three thousand ducats from a moneylender; on the other hand, his extreme unkindness to Shylock and blatant racism. Apparently both are unsurprising extremes to an Elizabethan sensibility.

Nicholas Wells’ Antonio is rueful, jaded and indulgent of his great young friend Bassanio, in spite of himself. The animosity with Shylock is well-sustained and builds convincingly to the great courtroom scene and aftermath. At Belmont, after winning the case, Wells’ Antonio is all too aware he is playing gooseberry to all the lovers. Switzer, I think rightly, gives him a little cameo moment toclose the play where he might just as well be quoting Hamlet’s Polonius who says:
“Neither a borrower nor a lender be,
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.”

Graeme Cairns’ Shylock is malicious rather than bitter and, with this reading of the text, with reason. His exceptional avarice is well delivered, too – bemoaning the loss of a diamond before that of his daughter. But of course acquiring money takes second place to his desire to extract his pound of fleshy revenge for Antonio’s extreme rudeness to him. The tension between these two men is palpable and their strong performances anchor the production. 

Similarly securing the ground for the play are three other pairs of characters: the servants, turned into nicely balanced cameos by Rebecca Travers (Bianca) and David Sutcliffe (Launcelot); Portia’s two loser suitors, played at full throttle by Benny Marama and David Sutcliffe (again); Matt Powell and Philip Garrity who represent Venetian businessmen, society and courtiers most ably, especially in a novel hair washing scene, reminding us that Venice was ever a place of fashion and style. 

The design of the piece is simple and effective with scaffolding supporting vertical strips of corrugated plastic which take on the lighting hues of each setting and match the predominantly reds, oranges, yellows and greens of the fashions very well.

The vertical stripe theme also goes to men’s clothing, with striped wide-sleeved shirts and variegated pant leg colours for each, and cloaks added to denote personage; most effective and interesting to see. In addition the women all look beautiful, especially in pretty ball dresses of orange, blue and green. The use of hats and caps is apt, allowing the prince to look most Doge-like in the court scene and providing excellent cover for the ringlet locks of whichever Portia will be on each night.

These are all good reasons to go out on winter night and visit FULLHOUSES’ Venice.

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