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Re-imagined ‘Merchant of Venice’ in New York Fails Horribly Because of Poor Artistic Choices
“The Merchant of Venice” at Classic Stage Company. Photo: publicity release.
William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice is one of his most powerful plays. In recent years, there have been some who said it should not be taught or performed because of its anti-Jewish themes.
Early on in the new production of the play at Classic Stage Company in Manhattan, one performer on stage calls it a “problem play.”
I’ve taught the play many times at a high school level, and no student came away hating Jews because Shylock, the Jewish moneylender, is the villain of the play. Art is a reflection of reality — and one character does not represent an entire people.
There are surely large antisemitic elements in the play, including that Shylock is bent on getting his pound of flesh, refusing to have multiple times the money he has lent Antonio (who has mocked him in the past and treated him poorly) returned.
I was looking forward to seeing this production, and how Richard Topol as Shylock would give the “Hath not a Jew eyes,” speech, in which he argues for equality and seeing Jewish people’s humanity.
With rising antisemitism in the world and in America, I looked forward to seeing how the play would be “re-imagined” — as Classic Stage Company promised.
Jewish director Igor Golyak has a kernel of genius in having this staged production as a talk show. But the kernel unfortunately never pops. He abandons a possible Jerry Springer idea for some weak slapstick comedy that doesn’t work in the slightest.
The actors are all high energy and talented. Alexandra Silber, who I’ve seen excellently play Tzeitel in a production of Fiddler on the Roof, is a commanding presence on stage as Portia and fun to watch. Jorge Espinoza has great charm as an idealistic and muscular Bassanio. As Shylock, Richard Topol wears Groucho Marx fake glasses and a fake big nose and he is a good actor, but the play is so off-kilter, there is no power in any of his lines. Gus Birney goes all in with a good amount of gusto as Shylock’s daughter, Jessica, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she has a lead role in an upcoming play. T.R Knight who plays Antonio, has some good moments.
But I cannot understand what in the world Golyak is trying to do here. Yes, we get it. He wants to show the absurdity of how in Shakespeare’s times, the play was viewed as a comedy and should not be viewed as funny. But in order to do this, one should make sure there is balance and power, not just things that appear different for the sake of being different.
This production is like a promising microwave meal that looks smoking hot at the beginning, and fails because not enough care and craft was taken.
There are two jaw-droppingly absurd moves. The first is to have Richard as Shylock say “Richard is my name.” This is simply infantile. The biggest miss is to think people will care that you have a painted Jewish star and the chanting of the “kel maleh” the prayer recited at funerals, despite scenes earlier, having a puppet perform a sex act on another. You can choose one of the other to have in your play — but using both together is a cheap trick, and destroys tonal consistency.
There is value to abstract art, and not doing everything “on the nose.” But to try to shock simply to be shocking is pointless.
To have “Hava Nagilah” in the show also serves no purpose. A scene where a character is tied down as was Jack Tripper in Three’s Company also has no relation to The Merchant of Venice.
A woman who sat next to me said she’d seen Golyak’s direction of Our Class, which was a play about five Jews and five Catholics in Poland and is inspired by the 1941 pogrom in the Polish village of Jedwabne. I am sorry I did not see it.
It is sadly ironic that the Classic State Company has done away with a classic play, and turned it into a ball of randomness and banality. That some of the women are scantily clad neither helps nor hurts the production.
When you peel off the plastic, this production of The Merchant of Venice has some smoke, but no fire because Golyak, despite a great cast, fails to go deeper into a depiction of the consumption and understanding of information and more specifically, hate.
The author is a writer based in New York.
The post Re-imagined ‘Merchant of Venice’ in New York Fails Horribly Because of Poor Artistic Choices first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Italian Port Blocks Arms for Israel as Worker Protests Mount
Illustrative: Demonstrators participate in a pro-Palestinian protest in Piazza Duomo in Milan, Italy, on Nov. 23, 2024. Photo: Alessandro Bremec/NurPhoto via Reuters Connect
The Italian Adriatic port of Ravenna on Thursday refused entry to two trucks said to be carrying arms to Israel, as protests mount among Italian dockworkers and other labor groups against the offensive in Gaza.
The center-left mayor of Ravenna, Alessandro Barattoni, told reporters the port authority had accepted the request from him and the regional government to deny access to the lorries carrying explosives en route to the Israeli port of Haifa.
“The Italian state says it has blocked the sale of arms to Israel but it is unacceptable that, thank to bureaucratic loopholes, they can pass through Italy from other countries,” Barattoni said in a statement.
He did not provide details on where the containers had come from or provide evidence of their contents.
Similar action to block arms shipments to Israel has been taken by dockworkers in other European countries such as France, Sweden, and Greece.
Ravenna’s decision reflects growing mobilization in Italy against Israel‘s military campaign and in support of an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to the Palestinians.
A spokesperson from the Israeli embassy in Rome said they did not have sufficiently detailed information about the case and so declined to comment. Israel‘s government sometimes accuses Europea nations of bias against it and swallowing propaganda by the Hamas terrorist group whom it is fighting in Gaza.
On Friday Italy’s largest trade union body, the CGIL, will hold a national half-day strike and marches in Rome and other cities, while on Sept. 22 two other unions will halt work and try to block activity in the large ports of Genoa and Livorno.
“We won’t let a single pin through the port,” said Riccardo Rudino from the Calp dockers’ union in Genoa.
Israel launched its offensive after Hamas-led terrorists attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing more than 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages.
The CGIL said its protests were aimed at generating pressure on Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s government “to suspend all commercial and military cooperation agreements with Israel, lift the humanitarian embargo, and recognize the State of Palestine.”
Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said on Thursday Italy would support EU sanctions against violent Israeli settlers and Israeli ministers who have made “unacceptable” comments on Gaza and the West Bank, and was open to considering trade sanctions.
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Israeli Tanks, Infantry Advance in Gaza City Offensive as Enclave Hit by Telecoms Blackout
Smoke rises following Israeli strikes during a military operation, in Gaza City, Sept. 18, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ebrahim Hajjaj
Israeli tanks were advancing on Thursday in two Gaza City areas that are gateways to the city center, while internet and phone lines were cut off across the Gaza Strip, a sign that ground operations were likely to further escalate imminently.
Israeli forces control Gaza City’s eastern suburbs and in recent days have been pounding the Sheikh Radwan and Tel Al-Hawa areas, from where they would be positioned to advance on central and western areas where most of the population is sheltering.
In separate developments, Israel attacked Hezbollah military targets in southern Lebanon, while two Israelis were killed at Allenby Crossing between the West Bank and Jordan, in what the Israeli military called a “terror attack.”
INFANTRY, TANKS, ARTILLERY ADVANCING TOWARDS INNER CITY
Israeli army spokesperson Nadav Shoshani said Israeli forces had been operating in the periphery of Gaza City for several weeks but since the night of Monday to Tuesday large numbers of troops had begun moving towards the inner city.
He said a combination of infantry, tanks, and artillery was advancing, backed up by the air force, and that it was a gradual process that would increase as time went on.
“The strategy right now is to defeat Hamas and apply pressure on Hamas, which can lead to a deal or can lead to rescue missions [to free hostages],” Shoshani told Reuters on the Israeli side of the border with Gaza.
A total of 48 hostages captured during the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, remain in Gaza and Israeli officials believe around 20 are still alive.
Hostage families have been imploring Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to stop the offensive on Gaza and instead negotiate a ceasefire with Hamas to free their loved ones, but Netanyahu says military victory will bring them home.
The armed wing of Hamas said on Thursday the hostages were distributed throughout the neighborhoods of Gaza City.
“The start of this criminal operation and its expansion means you will not receive any captive, alive or dead,” it said in a written statement.
MANY FLEEING AMID TELECOMS BLACKOUT, MANY MORE STAYING PUT
The Palestinian Telecommunications Company said in a statement that its services had been cut off “due to the ongoing aggression and the targeting of the main network routes.”
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have fled Gaza City since Israel announced on Aug. 10 it intended to take control, but a greater number are staying put, either in battered homes among the ruins or in makeshift tent encampments.
The military has been dropping leaflets urging residents to flee towards a designated “humanitarian zone” in the south of the territory, but aid agencies say conditions there are dire, with insufficient food, medicine, shelter, and basic hygiene.
The World Health Organization warned on Thursday that critical shortages of blood in Gaza hospitals could see key services grind to a halt within days.
FAMILIES WITH BELONGINGS EVACUATE TOWARDS THE SOUTH
Along the coastal road, an unbroken column of every type of vehicle from carts and beaten-up cars to vans designed to carry goods was moving south, heavily laden with mattresses, gas cylinders, and entire families perching on their belongings.
“We are heading to go sleep on the streets towards the beach, like this, barefoot, we don’t know where to go,” said Yasser Saleh, speaking as he stood on the edge of a rickety trailer being pulled by a car.
The war was triggered by the Oct. 7 attacks, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage.
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Syria’s Foreign Minister in Washington, a First in 25 Years
Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad Hassan al-Shibani speaks during a press conference in Moscow, Russia, July 31, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Shamil Zhumatov/Pool
Syria’s foreign minister arrived in Washington on Thursday, the first official visit at that level in more than 25 years as the US makes a pro-Damascus policy push, lifting sanctions and mediating between the new Islamist rulers and Israel.
Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shibani will meet US lawmakers to discuss the lifting of remaining US sanctions on his country, Senator Lindsey Graham was quoted as saying by Axios. Two sources familiar with the trip confirmed the visit to Reuters.
It comes after some senior US diplomats focused on Syria were abruptly let go from their posts amid Washington‘s pivot, as the US seeks to integrate its longtime Syrian Kurdish allies with the central administration of President Ahmed al-Sharaa.
The United States has also been mediating between Israel and Syria. Sharaa, who is due to visit New York next week for the UN General Assembly, said negotiations to reach a security pact with Israel could yield results “in the coming days.”
The United States had placed crippling sanctions on Syria since 2011 after former President Bashar al-Assad, an ally of Iran and Russia, cracked down protests against him that triggered an almost 14-year civil war.
After he was toppled by Sharaa’s forces in a quick sweep in December, Washington and Damascus have been working to warm up ties, with US President Donald Trump announcing that he would move to lift the sanctions after meeting Sharaa in May.