Reviews
THE STAGE
Friday 19 June 2009 at 11:05 by Jeremy Brien.
Michael Dyer, artistic director of open-air theatre specialists the Festival Players, takes on the considerable additional responsibility this time round of playing Shylock, as well as directing what is universally acknowledged to be one of Shakespeare’s most difficult plays.
Michael Dyer (Shylock) and David Lee-Jones (Antonio) in The Merchant of Venice at Langford House, Bristol
As usual, the all-male company has pared down both the text and the action to suit a summer’s evening. Happily, though, this does not mean dumbing down the issues of race, religion, sex and money that make this such a problem play. Dyer portrays a soft-spoken, sympathetic Shylock, rather than the crude anti-Semitic caricature of Shakespeare’s own time. Along the way, his clear and straight-forward interpretation avoids the temptation to make the narrative a metaphor for the iniquities of the 21st-century banking system.
He is strongly supported by David Lee-Jones’ upright Antonio and James Scannell’s self-centred Bassanio, while Matthew Barksby makes Portia determined both to get the right husband and to dominate the trial scene that is the centrepiece of any stage production. The rather unwieldy elements of romantic comedy are naturally also important to an alfresco production, with Tom Giles making the runaway Jessica more of a flirt than usual, and Paul Thomas finding more infectious humour in Portia’s lady in waiting Nerissa than the rather annoying Launcelot Gobbo.
Once again the original score by Cotswold folk singer Johnny Coppin is among the pleasures of another Festival Players success.