KEY POINTS:
Whatever one makes of the politics behind The Merchant of Venice, the play is unrivalled in its ability to conjure up the irreducible hatred engendered by racial and religious difference.
There can be few works that are more obviously relevant to our times.
The threat of slicing flesh from a living man is matched by the callous humiliation of a forced Jewish conversion to Christianity.
And what makes the play notoriously difficult to stage is that these profoundly disturbing images are framed by the frivolity of a conventional romantic comedy.
Director Thomas Sainsbury has opted for a bold updating of the play, setting the drama in a glittering world of high fashion, cellphones and drug habits.
The attractive young cast look like they might have spilled out of a fashionable night club and their every move is shadowed by a video camera.
The strategy enjoys mixed success. Catherine McHattie delivers a striking portrayal of Portia as an intelligent, calculating woman who is clearly in control of her own destiny.
This works well when she is seeing off her hapless suitors but makes it difficult to understand why she falls for the gold-digging Bassanio.
Her clinically efficient performance in the court room scene underscores the hypocrisy of Christian justice, but misses the subtle ironies embedded in the quality of mercy speech.
Shylock appears as a cool-headed businessman - more like an investment broker than a loan shark.
Paul Letham displays fine vocal skill and carries off the part with great consistency but the interpretation struck me as misconceived. His urbane, ironical tone echoes the cynicism of Portia and the Venetian smart set, but his words seem to come from a very different place.
Shylock's single-minded intensity is chillingly sincere, potently evoking the spirit of revenge and unquenchable resentment.
The cast sometimes struggle with the intricacies of Shakespeare's language and the low-key delivery often seems at odds with the intensity of the drama.
Surprisingly the production makes little use of music and the speeches which refer to the power of music are axed as well as a number of other lines.
By trimming the text the play gains in clarity and runs for less than 90 minutes but the absence of music lends a static quality to much of the action.
Nevertheless, the production continues the Summer Shakespeare tradition of innovation and risk-taking, and provides evidence of a thoughtful engagement with a deeply ambiguous text that has plenty to say to a contemporary audience.
When: Mon-Sat until March 10, 7.30pm
