The Merchant of Venice is a story of outsiders. Shylock, the great out-sider of Venice, sits at the heart of the play and embittered by opposition at every turn. Beside him is Portia of Belmont, affirming herself in a world all too ready to relegate women to silent, subservient roles.
Their correlation culminates in Shylock’s speech on hatred (“Hath not a Jew eyes?”), followed by Portia’s presentation at the trial scene (“The quality of mercy is not strained”) – Portia and Shylock come together, speaking in one voice, filled by a common inspiration.
Directed by Joe Friggieri, this year's MADC summer Shakespeare turns its back on the palace (looking forward to the good use that will doubtless be made of balconies and balustrades in next year’s production, Romeo and Juliet) and instead achieves a subdued but effective staging, projecting depth in a view of darkened trees and simple lighting. The result works well within the shadowy world of Shakespeare's satirical nightmare.
Shylock has paid 3,000 ducats to purchase the death of Antonio, the man he hates, while Portia surrenders more than three times that amount to rescue her husband's beloved friend. Both Portia and Shylock use money as their medium, but to radically different ends.
Portia’s money allows her to shelter Shylock’s runaway daughter and discarded servant. Shylock’s relationship with money is altogether more inwardly fixed, a covetous idolatry, and his character is at once an offensive assertion and challenging subversion of anti-Semitic tropes in early modern Christian culture.
Manuel Cauchi’s Shylock flings defiance with devastating control, trapped in the confines of an identity carved out for him by a community that will not, and cannot, accept him. The role is so stuffed with potential that it presents plenty of pitfalls, risks of overacting – Cauchi does no such thing, and is pitch-perfect throughout.
He creates a restrained but smoldering Shylock, resentful and ferocious in private, icily calm when confronted by his tormentors. Michael Mangion as the merchant, Antonio, does a decent job of highlighting the character's middle-aged melancholy, but the presentation is more somnolent than solemn. It is a peculiar counterpoint to Cauchi’s simmering energy and Philip Leone Ganado’s crisp performance as Bassanio.
Playing the beautiful Portia, Coryse Borg presents a character at once playful and incisive. Her scenes have charm, and Borg comes into her own for the trial scene.
As a dramatic exploration of politico-social themes currently being contested and questioned in Malta, Friggieri's direction is never heavy-handed. The resonances are left to speak for themselves, nowhere more clearly than in the moments before Shylock's final undoing. We are given a chance to see the similarities between Portia and Shylock that prevent any easy emotions.
There is, after all, a relation-ship between the two that neither fully acknowledges.
When Portia says that Shylock must be merciful, she speaks as one foreigner to another, gesturing to a common humanity already eloquently expressed by Shylock himself. Portia offers a mirror to the Jew in her own strange other-ness, within a world of Christian men who look but do not see.