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About Last Night

Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

TT: The Merchant of Broadway

November 15, 2010 by ldemanski

The big news in New York theater this week is the opening of the Broadway transfer of the Public Theater’s production of The Merchant of Venice. Accordingly, The Wall Street Journal asked me to write a special review for today’s Greater New York section. Here’s an excerpt.
* * *
SHylock.jpegWhen I reviewed the Public Theater’s Central Park production of “The Merchant of Venice” in June, I said that it might end up on Broadway, and that it deserved to. This has now happened, and the main reason for the transfer is, needless to say, Al Pacino. Even so, what was true six months ago is still true today: Mr. Pacino is a galvanic Shylock, but this “Merchant” would be more than good enough to play on Broadway no matter who was in the title role. The best news is that Daniel Sullivan and Mark Wendland, the director and set designer, have managed to take a site-specific outdoor production and move it to the proscenium stage of the Broadhurst Theatre without any loss of theatrical potency. If anything, the show is more tightly focused in its smaller indoor home.
Shakespeare on Broadway has tended in recent seasons to be spotty, usually because of the stunt casting that makes such productions as Jude Law’s “Hamlet” financially feasible. Fortunately, Mr. Pacino’s performance, in which he plays Shylock as an old-fashioned “stage Jew” driven to the edge of madness by his lust for revenge, is no stunt. He is a veteran stage actor who knows how to nail every line to the auditorium’s back wall, and even if you think he’s flirting with caricature–which he is–you’ll find the results enthralling…
Would that the cheap seats were a whole lot cheaper, but don’t begrudge Mr. Pacino his big-name salary. He’s earning every cent of whatever he’s being paid–and then some. You’ll never see a more exciting “Merchant of Venice,” or a more thought-provoking one.
* * *
The print version of the Journal‘s Greater New York section only appears in copies of the paper published in the New York area, but the complete contents of the section are available on line, and you can read my review of The Merchant of Venice by going here.

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Terry Teachout

Terry Teachout, who writes this blog, is the drama critic of The Wall Street Journal and the critic-at-large of Commentary. In addition to his Wall Street Journal drama column and his monthly essays … [Read More...]

About

About “About Last Night”

This is a blog about the arts in New York City and the rest of America, written by Terry Teachout. Terry is a critic, biographer, playwright, director, librettist, recovering musician, and inveterate blogger. In addition to theater, he writes here and elsewhere about all of the other arts--books, … [Read More...]

About My Plays and Opera Libretti

Billy and Me, my second play, received its world premiere on December 8, 2017, at Palm Beach Dramaworks in West Palm Beach, Fla. Satchmo at the Waldorf, my first play, closed off Broadway at the Westside Theatre on June 29, 2014, after 18 previews and 136 performances. That production was directed … [Read More...]

About My Podcast

Peter Marks, Elisabeth Vincentelli, and I are the panelists on “Three on the Aisle,” a bimonthly podcast from New York about theater in America. … [Read More...]

About My Books

My latest book is Duke: A Life of Duke Ellington, published in 2013 by Gotham Books in the U.S. and the Robson Press in England and now available in paperback. I have also written biographies of Louis Armstrong, George Balanchine, and H.L. Mencken, as well as a volume of my collected essays called A … [Read More...]

The Long Goodbye

To read all three installments of "The Long Goodbye," a multi-part posting about the experience of watching a parent die, go here. … [Read More...]

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