STROUD NEWS & JOURNAL

THE MERCHANT OF VENICE - HAWKWOOD COLLEGE, STROUD.

Lo and behold it was a lovely, cloudless evening when the Festival Players Theatre Company performed Shakespeare's play in the grassy "amphitheatre" nestling in the lovely grounds of Hawkswood College. However, it must have been disappointing for the actors to have only a bare 50 persons in the audience. To all those who were absent I can only report that you missed a most enjoyable evening. Six male actors covered no less than 20 characters, including, of course, the three female roles. Apart from the role of Shylock all these characters were played by five young and extremely talented actors who cleverly adapted to whichever role they were playing. Designer Stacey-Jo Branford 's costumes were just right but I think some facial make-up (now, admittedly out of fashion for some obscure reason) would have helped. The story of The Merchant of Venice is too well known to repeat here and as usual with this play we are torn between pitying and hating Shylock the Jew. In theory he is right in wanting his pound of flesh but he loses all our sympathy when he shows he is fully prepared to cut the flesh off himself! This pacy production, directed by Michael Dyer , placed the emphasis on the many lighter moments in the play with some or all of the cast frequently breaking out into songs (by Johnny Coppin) with "We'll go no more a-roving" and " Tell me where is fancy bred..." Tom Giles and Paul Thomas harmonised well together. In most productions of this play that I have seen the role of Shylock has been much more dominent and forceful. Michael Dyer's Shylock was more laid back which, I suppose, left the way clear to concentrate on the lighter scenes. I was a little disappointed also to hear some of the glorious poetical lines rushed rather than relished. But all in all this was a good evening of travelling theatre by a hard-working and well-spoken team of young actors.

DONALD HOLLINS