Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, revisited by Valerio Binasco, becomes the emblem of the persecution of diversity, in a continuous mixing between good and evil.
"The essential thing about Shylock is that he is a heretic or a Jew, but that he is an outsider". With these words the director Valerio Binasco defines "his of him" Merchant of Venice. And it is the conclusion to which the spectator himself arrives in witnessing the reinterpretation of the famous Shakespeare drama interpreted by Silvio Orlando, as Shylock, and from Popular Shakespeare Company.
La plot is that known to all. The young gentleman Bassanio would like to ask the hand of the beautiful and rich Porzia, but he needs 3000 ducati. He then decides to borrow them from his friend Antonio who, not having at the time of the sum because he is engaged in maritime traffic, presents himself as guarantor to Shylock, a wealthy Jewish usurer who already has some unfinished business with him. The cold and ruthless Shylock can't stand Antonio, because he lends money for free by lowering the interest rate in the city, but decides to help him by asking in return, in case of non-payment by a set date, a pound of his meat instead of the usual interest in money. Bad luck wants Antonio's maritime trades to fail, and the cruel Shylock demands the collection of his absurd request.
Valerio Binasco focuses its staging on continuous mixing of "good" and "evil".
Now Shylock is good; now it's bad. Now Antonio is evil; now the good. A law is unjust, and then it is right. Bad music during the day, it becomes beautiful at night. It depends on the circumstances
When do you get to think about that Shylock is the "villain" of the piece, we are basically against that he is actually the victim of a context that considers him "foreign" and "different" from a weird and bored group of friends:
The heroes of this story are not heroes. They stand in the second and third row in life. They watch her from a coffee table. On the surface they are rich idlers who have a lot of fun being rich and idle, well identified with their 'clan' which is made up only of the rich and idle. But it is only appearance. On closer inspection they have some concerns. Of melancholy. They have a thrust inside that leads them to risky gestures, to adventure. The fact that they are always shared adventures with friends makes them somewhat peasant heroes, creators of anecdotes rather than legends. The law of their life is to make life a silly game. When this law is shared, it becomes identifying. To the point of persecuting those who are different, such as for example. Shylock, who with all his ancient seriousness seems to threaten a society of fatuous players
There is a certain sense of discomfort in witnessing the final defeat of Shylock, the only character who seems to take everything that happens seriously, in an "Old Testament" attitude.
It seems to me that the Old Testament inspires an ancient way of approaching life. It's just a question of style. Shylock has an ancient style. He has a 'serious' style, from an ancient testament. The Venetians, on the other hand, are too frivolous; and Shylock is too serious. And he's an outsider because he's the only serious character in the Merchant
If over the centuries we have considered Shakespeare's play "anti-Semitic", Valerio Binasco offers us a new key to reading. The Merchant of Venice is based on the persecution of diversity, of an outsider, of a foreigner. And evil does not reside in Shylock but in the money worship and of the materialism that, after all, belongs to all the characters on stage.
One emerges great fable of the theater, which culminates in the tragicomic moment of the trial against Antonio (or against Shylock?) where between the masked farce, the amorous skirmishes and the rigidity of justice (a special applause goes to Elisabetta Mandalari and Milvia Marigliano, in the roles of Porzia and her maid Nerissa), the great truth is revealed.
The truth of a story that reveals that there is no truth anywhere. Yet life can still be a party. Even if the day is hard to appear. And it is neither night nor day in this fairytale end. It's the freaky hour of the theater, when a paper moon rises, and the wind caresses the leaves without making any noise. Nothing hurts us. Not even life.
Lo spettacolo The merchant of Venice is still on stage at the Bellini Theater until Sunday 16 November 2014. For information on timetables and ticket prices, see our website card on Napolike
