A few minutes before the play begins actors enter wearing not Elizabethan, but Edwardian apparel. Gradually, they populate a stage setting dominated by a ticker tape machine, towering abacuses, and walls that appear to be assembled from exquisitely sharp blades. These blades form a cool steel fortress in which those who belong can do business and from which those who are reviled can be shut out. While it may seem irrelevant in 2010, I feel compelled to mention that in this play the reviled ones are my ancestors. And bizarre as it may sound, I can’t help feeling that if this play could prick us, my ancestors and I would bleed.

Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice is a problematic comedy about justice in which the title character, Antonio, is an unrepentant bigot and the villain, Shylock, is a grotesque Jewish money-lender who lusts for a pound of Christian flesh.  To stoke Shylock’s rage, his daughter Jessica, predating Chavaleh by four hundred years, runs away with a Christian suitor and some of her father’s money.  Meanwhile, a wealthy heiress, Portia, seeks a husband using the Let’s Make a Deal tactic of having suitors choose one of three boxes.  Fortunately, after two comical failures from the wrong men, the right man, Bassanio, wins her hand.  The stories are connected by the fact that Bassanio is loved with weird intensity by Antonio, the merchant; actually, the loan of 3,000 ducats with the pound of flesh collateral is taken by Antonio on Bassanio’s behalf. There is more–cross-dressing and intrigue having to do with rings–and since it’s a comedy all ends well. The titular bigot keeps his flesh and needn’t pay back the ducats, the nice young people get married, and the grotesque Jewish lender loses all his money and is forced to convert to Christianity. A happy ending.

The Merchant of Venice is an Elizabethan anti-Semitic comedy that must be retrofitted to play, at least in part, as a contemporary comment on anti-Semitism.  Director Daniel Sullivan succeeds at this retrofit.  Using some interpolated scenes of excluding Jews, some spitting, and a gut-wrenching baptism, it’s hard for anyone to not understand Shylock’s rage, or perhaps, his mental illness, or the hopelessness of his situation.  Mark Wendland’s bank-like setting, which closes the jaws of its circular gates against the Jews with metallic finality, reminds us that money can bring out the worst in people.

Of course, the greatest weapon in Sullivan’s arsenal is his star, Al Pacino. It’s hard to tell if Pacino is “that good,” or if we just get an endorphin rush being in the presence of the Don’s youngest son, the less crazy of the two Dog Day bank robbers, the blind “HOOO WAAAAH” guy, and the amazing Roy Cohn. That said, Pacino is thrilling from start to finish. He is harried and stooped over, often with ironic or accusatory glances. His line readings make Shakespeare’s words sound surprisingly contemporary. And his choice of vocal quality is heroic. In contrast to his filmed version in which Shylock’s voice is natural and conversational, Pacino goes all out here with a pitch and phrasing that seems to quote the Jackie Mason/George Jessel-ish rhythms of the stage Jew from the middle of the last century. This choice could be deadly in less deft hands, but Pacino is so committed and so embodies this strange character that his Shylock, horrible though he may be, is amusing at times and irresistible throughout.

Pacino is in good company. Lily Rabe as Portia, the cross-dressing heiress, shares with Pacino the ability to make Shakespeare’s lines sound like normal 21^st century speech. Like her male counterpart, David Harbour as Bassanio, Rabe is energetic and compelling. Furthermore, it is fun to see some of our friends from television on the stage; there is a short visit from Murphy Brown‘s Charles Kimbrough as a suitor who picks the wrong box, and a winning performance from Law and Order‘s Jesse L. Martin as Bassanio’s hard-partying pal, Gratiano. A special tip of the keyboard goes to Christopher Fitzgerald, the former Igor of Young Frankenstein and Og of Finian’s Rainbow. He is Launcelot, the bizarre and anti-Semitic clown, who amuses and charms even though I do not recommend hiring him for your kid’s birthday party.

I have to confess that I rarely go out of my way to see Shakespeare plays. Perhaps I’m still reeling from the Shakespeare aversion therapy I suffered through in high school. Furthermore, The Merchant of Venice has never been near the top of my “must see” list perhaps because of anxiety about my pricked and bloody ancestors. Nevertheless, I’m glad I saw this wonderful production which was fine overall and which, especially, afforded an opportunity to see the thunderous Pacino at the height of his powers.

“Broadway Fred” appears every Wednesday.

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