Stage Review: ‘The Merchant of Venice’ Takes A Gay Path To Tragedy

metroweekly.com:

The Merchant of Venice share an affection like friends, like father and son, or like “bosom lovers,” but the play leaves no question that, for Antonio, Bassanio’s happiness is worth risking riches, reputation, and a pound of flesh.The script implies much in the pair’s intense devotion, and director Arin Arbus’ boldly queer production of The Merchant of Venice (★★★★☆) at the Shakespeare Theatre Company merely makes their attraction plain.

Alfredo Narciso as Antonio and Sanjit De Silva as Bassanio cast a riveting spell as paramours who have reached a crossroads, now that Bassanio yearns to marry the heiress Portia (Isabel Arraiza).To ensure his beloved Bassanio is set up financially for marriage, Antonio will stake his own funds and flesh, striking a deal with a Jewish moneylender whom he despises.

Shylock, portrayed with vigor and poignant vulnerability by John Douglas Thompson, is thus pitted as the villain against Antonio, a Christian who openly expresses his contempt for Jews, and yet, who, as we can see, also struggles to accept every part of himself.Antonio’s nasty antisemitism seems that much more complicated in a scenario where he’s clearly held back by societal prejudices and pressures that apply to other tribes.

By a similar token, Portia’s lot as “a living daughter curbed by the will of a dead father” captures the cultural barriers that have held women back for centuries.She responds by usurping a taste of male power with a brazen act of roleplay, while Shylock responds to being called a dog, spit on, and humiliated by insisting on taking exactly the debt he feels is owed to him — by both Antonio and the world.Portia and Shylock both plead for human rights, for acceptance, mercy, and justice.