this week in theater

ROUND DANCE

Arthur Schnitzler’s controversial La Ronde gets a new adaptation at the IRT Theater (photo by Adrian Viruet)

ROUND DANCE
IRT Theater
154 Christopher St. between Washington & Greenwich Sts.
Thursday – Sunday through March 27, $30
irttheater.org

Arthur Schnitzler’s controversial 1897 play, Reigen, better known as La Ronde, took more than two decades to reach the stage in a professional production, then was banned. The Vienna-born writer was brought up on immorality charges, laced with anti-Semitism, in Berlin and, though cleared, refused to allow the play to be performed in German-speaking countries; it wasn’t until 1982 that his son gave permission for productions in Germany and Austria.

La Ronde is a circular tale of five men and five women rotating in scenes of sex and love in 1890s Vienna; in each episode, one of the characters moves on to another person in the next scene, then that second person continues to a third person, and so on until the story revolves back to the first. The play has been adapted into a glorious 1950 film by Max Ophüls, narrated by Anton Walbrook and featuring a lively merry-go-round; Roger Vadim made a raunchier version in 1964 set in 1914 Paris, the script adapted by Jean Anouilh.

Oldest Boys Productions and Accidental Repertory Theater are now presenting the play, with the English title Round Dance, at the IRT Theater on Christopher St., directed by H. Clark Kee from his own translation. Part of the 3B Development Series, the show takes place in a small, intimate space. All ten actors — who portray men and women from different classes, from a hooker, a count, a poet, and a young wife to a soldier, a sweet girl, a gentleman, and a chambermaid — are always onstage. The eight actors who aren’t in the scene are lined up on the right and left, sitting in folding chairs, and they leap up to rearrange the set (tables, chairs, beds) in between each encounter. The success of the play depends on the subtle chemistry among the cast and the smooth transition between scenes, but Kee can’t quite reach those goals.

The acting is uneven, and the pace is unsteady, particularly over the course of two hours without an intermission. It has its moments but cannot sustain enough intensity, and the attempts to make the tale more relevant in the #metoo era amid the much-needed reevaluation of sexual consent, power dynamics, and conventional gender roles don’t ring true, nor does the incidental and interstitial music, which includes Haddaway’s “What Is Love (Baby Don’t Hurt Me).”

In the twenty-first century, Round Dance, which is set in an unidentified recent past, should look more forward; for example, in 2019, Cutting Ball Theater staged a version of La Ronde performed by two women, one Black, one white, that challenged old-fashioned perceptions and stereotypes from multiple perspectives, and Canada’s Soulpepper Theatre Company went all-out in a bold, sexy adaptation by Jason Sherman in 2013.

At the end of the play the night I went, the cast beckoned to Kee (Yellow Sound, Leonce and Lena) to join them onstage and accept a bouquet of roses; he declined, perhaps out of shyness, or maybe because he knew that the play still could use some further development.

LET THERE BE THEATRE — A CALL TO ACTION: WHITE RABBIT RED RABBIT

Who: Et Alia Theater
What: One-night-only performance of White Rabbit Red Rabbit
Where: Theater for the New City, Johnson Theater, 155 First Ave. between Ninth & Tenth Sts.
When: Sunday, March 13, $10-$18, 8:00
Why: On Friday, March 13, 2020, theaters across New York City were shuttered because of Covid-19. On March 13, 2022, at 8:00, to mark the two-year anniversary and to celebrate the reopening of venues around the globe, international companies will be performing Berlin-based Iranian playwright Nassim Soleimanpour’s 2011 autobiographical hit White Rabbit Red Rabbit as part of Let There Be Theatre — A Call to Action. The event is organized by Berlin-based Aurora Nova founder Wolfgang Hoffmann, who explains: “Ten years ago, almost to the day, I performed in a show at the Fadjr Festival in Tehran. At the festival hotel I was introduced to a young unpublished playwright who did not have a passport because he had refused to do military service. In order to get his work in front of an audience, he had devised a play that had to be performed as a cold read, without the need of a director, set, or rehearsals. All it needed was for a brave performer to agree to read a text in front of a live audience, without first knowing what the play was about. I liked this young man and loved his idea and spontaneously agreed to help produce his show at the Edinburgh Fringe later that year. When I finally saw the show performed live, I realised what this playwright had achieved. Through the power of his words alone he had written himself to freedom.”

Here in New York, Et Alia Theater, a company founded and led by international women, will be staging White Rabbit Red Rabbit at Theater for the New City, performed by co-artistic director Maria Müller (On How to Be a Monster, Where Are You from Again?). During the pandemic, Et Alia made the indie film This Is Me Eating___, then performed it live at the Alchemical Studios for one day last October. Tickets are only $10–$18 to see the sixty-to-ninety-minute show, which is always just as surprising for the actor as it is for the audience. I saw Obie winner Linda Emond in Soleimanpour’s autobiographical Nassim in 2018, which also involved no rehearsals and no prior access to the script, and it was a joy from start to finish. Among those who have previously performed White Rabbit Red Rabbit are John Hurt, Whoopi Goldberg, Nathan Lane, Stephen Rea, Sinead Cusack, Dominic West, Wayne Brady, Darren Criss, Kathy Najimy, Cynthia Nixon, Bobby Cannavale, Michael Urie, and Ken Loach.

Et Alia Theater will perform White Rabbit Red Rabbit on March 13 at Theater for the New City

“It is a one-time experience because the performer will have its opening and closing night of this play at the same time,” Hoffmann continues. “At 8 pm in every time zone there will be a multitude of shows starting at the same time for twenty-four hours, thus creating a massive theatrical community. On March 13 hundreds of courageous performers will face the same daring task to read a text they have not seen before to a live audience and everybody will be present at the same moment. The thought of all of us together, making theater once again — gives me boundless hope and energy.” Yes indeed, it’s great to be back.

THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF A WOMAN IN NEED

Naima Mora portrays different versions of herself in The Amazing Adventures of a Woman in Need (photos by Harris Davey)

THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF A WOMAN IN NEED
Triad Theater
158 West 72nd St. between Amsterdam & Columbus Aves.
Saturday, March 12, April 9, May 14, June 18, $30, 7:00
www.theamazingadventuresofawomaninneed.com
triadnyc.com

In the prologue to her debut solo show, The Amazing Adventures of a Woman in Need — which streamed during the pandemic and now returns to the Triad for an encore run monthly Saturdays beginning March 12 — Naima Mora, wearing jeans and a tight white tank top, holding a pink rose, describes the day in Harlem in 2002 when she realized she needed to turn her unhappy, unsatisfying life around. “I sit alone in my room, on my bed, wondering how I got here, wondering why I’m in this hell of a city, wondering why I’m killing myself to be here, wondering why my hair is falling out, wondering why I partied all night shoveling drugs up my nose, wondering why I’m sabotaging myself,” she says. “And then, I have to cradle myself, be gentle with myself, fall in love with myself, breathe and try to forget the last eight hours, and then forgive myself: forgive myself for being a drunk, for wanting insatiable fun to fill a void and forget the disappointment that I have with myself. And to myself, in my room, on my bed, guilt having settled in, and a little bit of a panic attack, just a little bit, I think to myself, I forgive you. I forgive you for being a fucking mess.”

Mora then admits, “Now, I’ve lived many lives: a supermodel, a crazy woman, and a gold digger, but I still haven’t really lived. So why not tell my story. I need to tell my story. I need to get this shit out of my body and out of my head. I need to rid myself of this self-inflicted destruction.” For the next seventy-five minutes, Mora portrays each of those characters, Penelope the supermodel, who can’t get a runway job anymore; the quirky Joanne, who suffers miscarriages and spends time in a psychiatric hospital; and Marisol Yanette Arnelis Rodriguez Lopes, a ritualistic woman facing too much solitude, offering such life lessons as “Get Your Hands Off My Peach Fuzz” and “Checkmate the Seduction: Train the Eggplant.” The set features a chair, a table, and a couch, a few props, and a screen on which photographs are projected.

An America’s Next Top Model winner, actress, author, and inspirational speaker, Mora who was born in Detroit in 1984, is barely recognizable in the roles, immersing herself fully into them, each with very different costumes, accents, hair, and movement. Directed and cowritten by Brooklyn native Marishka S. Phillips, The Amazing Adventures of a Woman in Need is a deeply intimate tale that also provides a roadmap for personal introspection; watching Mora deal with her issues so openly is likely to encourage audiences to do the same.

The virtual show I saw was recorded live with an audience at the Triad on October 16, 2021; it will be back at the Upper West Side theater for four performances, March 12, April 9, May 14, and June 18. Mora bravely puts herself out there as she battles her demons in public; she also traced the development of the play on social media. In a Twitter post last fall, she wrote, “My director is pushing me to my limits this week. Asking me to expand and literally stretch my artistic muscle for our show coming up in just 2 days!!! This has truly been a transformative experience.” It should be even more transformative now that it’s back in person.

CELEBRATING MOLIÈRE’S 400th BIRTHDAY

Who: Lisa Gorlitsky, Margaret Ivey, Postell Pringle, Adam Gopnik, Erica Schmidt, Comédie-Française
What: Celebration of Molière’s quadricentennial
Where: FIAF, Florence Gould Hall and Skyroom, 55 East 59th St. between Madison & Park Aves.
When: March 10-12, 24, 30, $20-$45 (three-event package $75)
Why: Jean-Baptiste Poquelin was born into a bourgeois family in early 1622 in Paris. Nicknamed “le Nez” because of his relatively large proboscis, he eventually became better known as poet, playwright, and actor Molière. In celebration of the four hundredth anniversary of his birth, the French Institute Alliance Française is hosting a trio of special events. Taking place March 10-12 at 7:30 ($45) at FIAF’s Florence Gould Hall, “Molière Turns 400: 17th Century Paris Meets 21st Century New York” consists of staged excerpts, complete with sets, costumes, and live music, from The Misanthrope, The School for Wives, and Tartuffe, with Lisa Gorlitsky, Margaret Ivey, and Postell Pringle and directed by Lucie Tiberghien, the founding artistic director of Molière in the Park, which performed livestreamed adaptations of all three works during the pandemic lockdown. The March 10 presentation will be followed by a reception.

Ivo van Hove’s adaptation of Molière’s uncensored Tartuffe screens at FIAF March 24

On March 24 at 7:00 ($25), New Yorker staff writer Adam Gopnik and director Erica Schmidt will be at the FIAF Skyroom for the talk “Modernizing Molière,” available in person and via livestream. Gopnik contributed the foreword to Molière: The Complete Richard Wilbur Translations, while Schmidt directed Molière’s The Imaginary Invalid at Bard SummerScape in 2012, starring her husband, Peter Dinklage. The fête concludes March 30 at 7:00 ($35) in Florence Gould Hall with a screening of Molière’s uncensored Tartuffe or the Hypocrite by Comédie-Française, directed by Ivo van Hove from the original script, which was censored by Louis XIV in 1664; the filmed version stars Christophe Montenez and features a score by Oscar-winning composer Alexandre Desplat.

THIS BITTER EARTH

Jesse (Damian Jermaine Thompson) and Neil (Tom Holcomb) face several crises in This Bitter Earth (photo by Mike Marques)

THIS BITTER EARTH
TheaterWorks Hartford online (and in person)
March 7-20, $20 virtual, $25 – $65 in person
twhartford.org

“This bitter earth / Well, what a fruit it bears / What good is love / Mmh, that no one shares? / And if my life is like the dust / Ooh, that hides the glow of a rose / What good am I? / Heaven only knows,” Dinah Washington sings in her 1960 number one hit, “This Bitter Earth.” The song plays at the end of TheaterWorks Hartford’s production of Harrison David Rivers’s This Bitter Earth, being performed onstage and streamed on demand through March 20.

The tender and moving, if earnest, play stars Damian Jermaine Thompson and Tom Holcomb as a mixed-race thirtyish couple facing different kinds of trauma in New York City and St. Paul, Minnesota, between March 2012 and December 2015. The serious Jesse Howard (Thompson) is a Black playwright with a burgeoning career; the more outgoing Neil Finley-Darden (Tom Holcomb) is a white Black Lives Matter activist from a wealthy family. While Neil feels grounded in his life and confident in his purpose, Jesse is much more on edge; in fact, he has a troubled relationship with gravity.

“Sometimes — and scientists may refute this, but fuck them — sometimes I can feel the Earth move. And not like tremors or earthquakes, tornados or hurricanes. This is not a matter of wind or tectonic plates but rather a matter of chemistry. Body chemistry. My body chemistry,” Jesse says in one of numerous short monologues he delivers directly to the audience. “I find it strange that others can’t feel it — the rotation. Strange and a bit lonely.”

The play takes place in their spacious Harlem bedroom, with large windows that often show snow falling, a coldness hovering over everything. (The attractive set is by Riw Rakkulchon.) “It’s the way that history isn’t history at all. Or, at least, the way that it doesn’t stay in the past. The way that the past fucks the present,” Neil tells us. The narrative goes back and forth in time, from when Jesse and Neil first meet and fall for each other, to the current day, amid several tragedies. Each flashback adds a bit more to the story, further developing the characters and certain key aspects of the story, which revolve around the murders of innocent Black men at the hands of white police officers and other citizens, from Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown to Jamar Clark and the Charleston church shooting.

Tom Holcomb and Damian Jermaine Thompson star as lovers who look at the world differently in TheaterWorks Hartford production (photo by Mike Marques)

But Rivers offers a neat twist on expectations, as Neil seems more intent on doing something about it than Jesse does. “You know, you accuse me of my white guilt, but what about yr apathy?” Neil declares as he prepares to take a van to a protest in Ferguson, Missouri. Jesse explains that he can’t go because he has rehearsals. “You know, yr not the center of the universe, Jesse. No one has that kind of gravitational pull. Not even you,” Neil says before leaving.

Their fights, which are no different from those of straight couples of the same race, often end in loving embraces, with clothes coming off as they roll around on the bed; their passion is evident throughout, even with their distractions. (There’s plenty for fight and intimacy director Rocío Mendez to do, as well as costume designer Devario D. Simmons.) But a common theme keeps arising, that of Jesse’s desire to live life like a regular person, whatever that is these days. “Yr a fucking double minority, Jesse,” Neil says, to which Jesse responds, “What does that have to do with anything?” Be sure to bring tissues for the conclusion.

Affectionately directed by David Mendizábal (Tell Hector I Miss Him, On the Grounds of Belonging) with almost too much thoughtful understanding, This Bitter Earth is a sensitive story of love in difficult times. The stream is well shot with multiple cameras in front of an audience, feeling like a theatrical work and not a film. The show, which premiered in 2017 at San Francisco’s New Conservatory Theatre Center, is even more cogent today, with the murders of Elijah McClain, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, and so many others occurring since the play’s debut. Rivers (Broadbend, Arkansas; When We Last Flew) has Jesse quote extensively from gay Black poet and activist Essex Hemphill, a hero of Jesse’s and, apparently, the playwright’s; the story works much better when Jesse speaks for himself.

Thompson (Fly, The Brother/Sister Plays) and Holcomb (London Assurance, Transport) have a sweet chemistry; you can’t help but root for Jesse and Neil through their hardships, trying to survive, as individuals and as a couple, in a world that needs to be seen as more than just black or white, straight or gay, male or female. As Washington sings, “Oh, this bitter earth / Yes, can it be so cold? / Today you’re young / Too soon you’re old / But while a voice / Within me cries / I’m sure someone / May answer my call / And this bitter earth, ooh / May not, oh, be so bitter after all.”

RED BULL THEATER CELEBRATES MARGARET CAVENDISH

Who: Red Bull Theater company
What: Livestreamed Zoom conversation, benefit reading, and Bull Session surrounding Margaret Cavendish’s The Convent of Pleasure
Where: Red Bull Theater website, Facebook Live, and YouTube
When: Conversation Monday, March 7, suggested donation $25, 7:30; benefit reading Monday, March 14, suggested donation $25, 7:30; Bull Session Thursday, March 17, free on YouTube with live chat, 7:30
Why: “Nature is material, or corporeal, and so are all her Creatures, and whatsoever is not material is no part of Nature, neither doth it belong any ways to Nature,” wrote duchess of Newcastle-upon-Tyne and polymath Lady Margaret Lucas Cavendish. Red Bull Theater is turning to the seventeenth-century poet, philosopher, aristocrat, scientist, fiction author, and playwright for Women’s History Month, presenting an online reading and discussions about her 1668 comedy, The Convent of Pleasure. The play, a closet drama not intended to be performed onstage and dealing with women who believe they can live a fulfilling life without men, features wealthy noblewoman Lady Happy, her friend the widow Madam Mediator, the anti-convent Monsieur Take-Pleasure, the married Lady Amorous and Lady Vertue, Mimick the fool, and a cross-dressing prince/princess suitor.

Lady Margaret Cavendish’s The Convent of Pleasure will be explored extensively by Red Bull

“Let me tell you, that Riches ought to be bestowed on such as are poor, and want means to maintain themselves; and Youth, on those that are old; Beauty, on those that are ill-favoured; and Virtue, on those that are vicious: So that if I should place my gifts rightly, I must Marry one that’s poor, old, ill-favoured, and debauch’d,” Lady Happy says early in the play. “Put the case I should Marry the best of Men, if any best there be; yet would a Marry’d life have more crosses and sorrows then pleasure, freedom, or hapiness: nay Marriage to those that are virtuous is a greater restraint then a Monastery. Or, should I take delight in Admirers? they might gaze on my Beauty, and praise my Wit, and I receive nothing from their eyes, nor lips; for Words vanish as soon as spoken, and Sights are not substantial. Besides, I should lose more of my Reputation by their Visits, then gain by their Praises. Or, should I quit Reputation and turn Courtizan, there would be more lost in my Health, then gained by my Lovers, I should find more pain then Pleasure; besides, the troubles and frights I should be put to, with the Quarrels and Brouilleries that Jealous Rivals make, would be a torment to me; and ’tis only for the sake of Men, when Women retire not: And since there is so much folly, vanity and falshood in Men, why should Women trouble and vex themselves for their sake; for retiredness bars the life from nothing else but Men.”

On March 7, Red Bull will host the Zoom discussion “The Closet or the Stage? A Conversation about Margaret Cavendish’s The Convent of Pleasure,” with University of Tennessee professor and author Misty G. Anderson; University of Toronto associate professor Liza Blake, editor of Margaret Cavendish’s Poems and Fancies: A Digital Critical Edition; Columbia University professor Julie Crawford, author of the upcoming Margaret Cavendish’s Political Career; and Carnegie Mellon professor emeritus, curator, and author Kristina Straub.

The reading, directed by Kim Weild (American Moor, Paradise Now), will be held the following Monday at 7:30, in association with the R/18 Collective, which “believes the theatrical repertoire from the 1660s to the 1830s provides insights into the deep histories of race, gender, sexuality, ability, nation, and capital that continue to shape anglophone culture and the world.” The cast includes Heidi Armbruster, Becca Ayers, Talley Gale, Cloteal Horne, Rami Margron, Anthony Michael Martinez, Maria-Christina Oliveras, and Josh Tyson. And then, on March 17, a free Bull Session with Weild, cast members, and scholars will take place on YouTube, with a live chat.

THE MERCHANT OF VENICE

John Douglas Thompson is extraordinary as Shylock in TFANA production of The Merchant of Venice (photo by Henry Grossman)

THE MERCHANT OF VENICE
Theatre for a New Audience, Polonsky Shakespeare Center
262 Ashland Pl. between Lafayette Ave. & Fulton St.
Through March 6, $75-$85
866-811-4111
www.tfana.org

Arin Arbus reimagines a Merchant of Venice for this moment in time in her ingenious adaptation of the Bard’s challenging tragedy, continuing through March 6 at TFANA’s Polonsky Shakespeare Center. A coproduction with DC’s Shakespeare Theatre Company, the play is Arbus’s fourth collaboration with classical treasure John Douglas Thompson, following Macbeth, Othello, Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, and Strindberg’s The Father. Thompson is heart-wrenching as Shylock, the first professional Black actor to play the role in New York City since Ira Aldridge in the 1820s.

When the lights go out, the full ensemble comes out in regular dress, signaling they are performers, not the characters they are about to portray. A moment later the show begins, with the cast in contemporary costumes by Emily Rebholz — blazers, jeans, sneakers, gym clothes, suits. Riccardo Hernandez’s set is an imposing faux marble wall and steps, with a large black hole in the upper center, as if the sun and moon are both gone. The characters enter and leave through two doors, the wings, or the aisles, almost as if they’re part of the audience.

In order to woo the wealthy, beautiful heiress Portia (Isabel Arraiza), the noble Bassanio (Sanjit De Silva) asks his close friend, Venetian merchant Antonio (Alfredo Narciso), to borrow three thousand ducats from respectable Jewish moneylender Shylock. Shylock is tired of being mocked because of his religion, and he lets Antonio know it. He tells the brash Antonio, “Many a time and oft / In the Rialto you have rated me / About my moneys and my usances: / Still have I borne it with a patient shrug, / For sufferance is the badge of all our tribe. / You call me misbeliever, cut-throat dog, / And spit upon my Jewish gaberdine, / And all for use of that which is mine own. / Well then, it now appears you need my help: / Go to, then; you come to me, and you say / ‘Shylock, we would have moneys:’ you say so; / You, that did void your rheum upon my beard / And foot me as you spurn a stranger cur / Over your threshold: moneys is your suit / What should I say to you? Should I not say / ‘Hath a dog money? is it possible / A cur can lend three thousand ducats?’ Or / Shall I bend low and in a bondman’s key, / With bated breath and whispering humbleness, Say this; / ‘Fair sir, you spit on me on Wednesday last; / You spurn’d me such a day; another time / You call’d me dog; and for these courtesies / I’ll lend you thus much moneys’?”

Portia (Isabel Arraiza) works out with her servant Balthazar (Jeff Biehl) in The Merchant of Venice (photo © Gerry Goodstein)

It’s a powerful speech that sets the stage for the relationship between Shylock and the others; he is clearly well educated and eloquent, but despite his passionate entreaty, the Christians treat him with scorn and disdain. Antonio needs to obtain the money for Bassanio, but he cannot help but still belittle Shylock.

“I am as like to call thee so again, / To spit on thee again, to spurn thee too,” he tells him. “If thou wilt lend this money, lend it not / As to thy friends; for when did friendship take / A breed for barren metal of his friend? / But lend it rather to thine enemy, / Who, if he break, thou mayst with better face / Exact the penalty.”

The penalty is a harsh one: Instead of charging Antonio interest, Shylock says he will take a pound of Antonio’s flesh if he doesn’t return the three thousand ducats in three months’ time. Certain that his merchant ships will come back successfully a month before the agreement ends, Antonio signs the contract.

Antonio and Bassiano are often accompanied by their sycophantic bros: snarky, sunglasses-wearing, cocktail-swilling yuppie Gratiano (Haynes Thigpen), who is funny until he isn’t; Solanio (Yonatan Gebeyehu) and Salerio (Graham Winton); and Lorenzo (David Lee Huynh), who wants to elope with Shylock’s daughter, Jessica (Danaya Esperanza), and convert her to Christianity to further her father’s shame. In addition, Shylock’s servant, the goofy Lancelot Gobbo (Nate Miller), who wears his jeans very low, quits his job with the moneylender and moves on to Bassiano. “For I am a Jew, if I serve the Jew any longer,” Lancelot says.

Meanwhile, two suitors beat Bassanio to try to win Portia’s hand. First Prince Morocco (Maurice Jones), then Prince of Aragon (Varín Ayala), must choose wisely among three caskets, one of which holds the key to Portia’s heart — and fortune. On the gold one is inscribed, “Who chooseth me shall gain what many men desire,” on the silver “Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves,” and on the lead “’Who chooseth me must give and hazard all he hath.”

Portia is attended by her servant Balthazar (Jeff Biehl) and her maid, Nerissa (Shirine Babb); the latter is supremely efficient, while the former offers comic relief, flirting hysterically with many of the men he meets and, when Portia asks for music, uses his iPhone. (The sound and original music is by Justin Ellington.)

Shylock (John Douglas Thompson) demands a pound of flesh from Antonio (Alfredo Narciso) in Shakespeare tragedy (photo © Gerry Goodstein)

It all leads up to one of the great trial scenes in all of theater, a brutal battle of wits in which Shylock, who is suing Antonio for his pound of flesh, represents not only Jews and Blacks, both of whom have histories of being enslaved and discriminated against up to the present day, but, in essence, all of humanity who have suffered hatred and oppression at the hands of tyrants and bigots.

Throughout its four-century existence, The Merchant of Venice has likely been performed by troupes that glorified anti-Semitism and was cheered on by audiences that agreed with Antonio and his friends’ views of Jews, as well as by companies and audiences that had deep sympathy for Shylock’s plight. But Arbus achieves something different.

The casting is diverse but not random; by having Shylock and Jessica portrayed by Black actors, Arbus is making a powerful statement, particularly in the socioeconomic reckoning that has taken hold in the wake of the police murder of George Floyd. With his gentle cracked whisper of a hoarse voice that comes from deep in his soul, the British-born Thompson (Jitney, The Iceman Cometh) is unforgettable as Shylock, not merely following in the footsteps of Laurence Olivier, F. Murray Abraham, George C. Scott, Al Pacino, Jonathan Pryce, and Patrick Stewart but making the role his own.

When Shylock, who is repeatedly referred to as a dog, a villain, a cur, and the devil, asks, “If you prick us, do we not bleed? / If you tickle us, do we not laugh? / If you poison us, do we not die? / And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?” Thompson is speaking for all the downtrodden; Shakespeare’s words echo down the ages: Sojourner Truth’s “Ain’t I a Woman?” speech leaps to mind as well. When Shylock tells the court, “Proceed to judgment: by my soul I swear / There is no power in the tongue of man / To alter me: I stay here on my bond,” Thompson speaks for all who resist injustice.

Arraiza shines as Portia, whether working out, dressed in an elegant gown with stiletto heels, or disguised as a learned doctor. Arbus ratchets up the homoeroticism by having Bassanio and Antonio be very good friends, while Biehl practically waves the Gay Pride flag as Balthazar. As serious as the subject matter is, Arbus includes plenty of fun and good humor; Biehl and Miller in particular often make vocal and gestural asides that are hilarious and certainly not in the original script.

“The quality of mercy is not strained, / It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven / Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest: / It blesseth him that gives and him that takes,” Portia says in Act 4. We are blessed to have such a thrilling production of this dark tragedy; if only all were blessed equally with mercy in these dark times.