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[an error occurred while processing this directive] (none) The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare June 5 - October 5 Director: Michael Donald Edwards. Scenery: William Bloodgood. Costumes: David Zinn. Lighting: Robert Jared. David Cooper Bassanio (Jeff Cummings) left, works a deal with Shylock (Tony Bruno), center, as tubal (Daniel Grossbard) listens in the Oregon Shakespeare Festival's 2001 production of William Shakespeare's `The Merchant of Venice.' Directed by Michael Donald Edwards; scenic design by William Bloodgood; costume design by David Zinn; lighting design by Robert Jared. By Douglas Langworthy OSF Dramaturg OSF asked Michael Donald Edwards, who last directed "Henry IV, Part One" at OSF in 1998, to direct, and he has set this production in late 19th-century New York, evoking Venice as the center of high finance and Belmont as a world of privilege and inherited wealth. Set design is by Resident Scenic Designer William Bloodgood, and costumes are by guest artist David Zinn (costume designer for last year's "The Man Who Came to Dinner"). The cast includes Tony DeBruno as Shylock, Michael Elich as Antonio, Jeff Cummings as Bassanio and Robin Goodrin Nordli as Portia. An Interview with Michael Donald Edwards "The Merchant of Venice" presents the contemporary director with a set of challenges unlike any other play in the Shakespearean canon. Because of the complex issues and emotions unleashed by the character of Shylock, a Jewish money lender (this is in fact Shakespeare's only play with Jewish characters), and in light of centuries scarred by anti-Semitism, whoever takes on this play today takes on the weight of history. When director Michael Donald Edwards began to prepare for this summer's production, he started by grappling directly with Shylock and his legacy. "It's become very difficult to yank this play out of the political and social and cultural context of the 20th century," Edwards said in an interview several months before rehearsals began. "When we look at `The Merchant of Venice,' we must be aware that we live in a world in which the memory of the Holocaust is still very real." Why does Shylock so capture our imagination? I think when Shake-speare was writing the character of Shylock, he was immensely influenced by Marlowe's villainous Barabas in "The Jew of Malta." But Shakespeare couldn't help himself, he wrote a human being. Did he include some basic anti-Semitic attitudes in his configuration of Shylock? Absolutely - he knew nothing else. But he couldn't help but write a human being, and that's why it's become such a problem. But Shylock is not the only ambivalent character in the play, precisely in the area of racist speech and behavior. We tend to think very simplistically about character: this person is a good person, this person is a bad person. Unfortunately, in life as in Shakespeare, good people say and do bad things, and bad people say and do good things. That really throws us. In "Merchant," we want to love Portia and be totally behind her journey, and yet she says racist and stupid things. Shylock says some brilliant things, and yet seeks murderous revenge. Antonio is nakedly racist, but he also acts from love and behaves with touching generosity. So what are we to make of all this ambiguity? We want Shakespeare's plays to dramatize a thesis. We want them to have a moral. We want them to come to certain edifying conclusions that make us feel not only have we been entertained, but that we've had our world view reinforced, whatever that may be, on basic moral or political positions. But he very rarely does that. And this territory of moral ambiguity can be stimulating and provocative for some audience members and infuriating for others. If Shylock dominates our memory of the play but doesn't appear in the last act, who is actually at the center of the play? I have come to see that Portia, Antonio and Shylock form a triad of characters around which the story revolves. If there is a journey that galvanizes the play, it is Portia's journey, from isolated, spoiled princess in a gilded cage, to a sophisticated, intelligent woman. Ironically, she finds her voice through disguising herself as a man and is finally able to achieve a marriage of true minds with Bassanio. Antonio, whose borrowing of the money sets the whole plot in motion, is motivated by his love of Bassanio. And Shylock, who has every reason to hate the society from which he is marginalized, finally has an opportunity to take revenge on the people who humiliate him on a daily basis. So how do you approach this play, with all its complexities? As a director, I would love to do a production that challenges every bit of anti-Semitic behavior in Shakespeare on the side of those who believe in equal rights for everybody. Unfortunately, the play isn't a political tract, you'd have to change it profoundly to make it into one. For example, when the Nazis tried to turn it into a tract, they had to cut a huge section of the play (for example, the marriage of Lorenzo and Jessica) and represent Shylock as a grotesque medieval devil figure. On the other hand, we've had Shylocks that have been made so bland, so assimilated, so ordinary, because we're afraid of portraying a character that can be perceived as an anti-Semitic representation. But without Shylock's energy, without his fury, his rage, you have no play, it seems to me. Part of the challenge is to make his rage comprehensible. We all have that in us. How do you envision the world of your production? I see two worlds of money in the play. Venice, the world of capitalist high finance. And Belmont, a world of inherited wealth, where money has lost the taint of how it was earned. I wanted to make this distinction vivid and clear, so we have opted for late 19th-century industrialism, New York perhaps, to capture Venice, and the Rockefeller estates to evoke Belmont. These are not literal representations but ways of imagining the worlds of the play that will enable us, I hope, to hear it new. 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