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MERCHANT OF VENICE
by: William Shakespeare
Director: Egon Savin
Premiere: 3 February 2004
Running time: 1st part 1h 30' / Break 15' / 2nd part 30' |
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 Cast and crew |
| Synopsis |
| About the director |
| Press reviews |
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Cast:
ANTONIO Irfan Mensur
SHAYLOCK Predrag Ejdus / Voja Brajovic
BASSANIO Goran Susljik
PORTIA Dragan Micanovic
GOBBO, TUBAL, DUKE Miodrag Radovanovic
PRINCE OF MOROCCO, ARAGON Goran Danicic
NERISSA Andjelika Simic
JESSICA Tanja Pjevac
GRATIANO Nebojsa Milovanovic
LORENZO Srdjan Timarov
SALANIO Pavle Pekic
SALARINO Nikola Vujovic
LAUNCELOT GOBBO Goran Jevtic/ Boris Milivojevic
GUARD Slobodan Pavelkic
PORTIA'S LADIES Isabella Appiah, Ana Simic, Jelena Angelovski
COURT CLERKS, GUARDS Nemanja Radomirovic, Filip Pavlasevic
Dramaturge: Milos Kreckovic
Set Designer: Miodrag Tabacki
Costume Designer: Kristina Ignjatovic
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SYNOPSIS
The director Egon Savin transfers the action of this gloomy comedy by Shakespeare in the Venice of the early nineteen-thirties, in the time of the coming Fascism. Young Bassanio asks his patron Antonio to lend him money so that he could propose to beautiful and rich Portia. Antonio has invested all his fortune in ships and has no ready money. He borrows the money from Shylock. Shylock hates Antonio, for he had humiliated and insulted him because of his Jewish origin and business (usury). Shylock agrees to lend the money, but demands of Antonio the right to cut out a pound of his flesh if he does not pay the debt. Antonio agrees to the deal. Shylock's daughter Jessica robs her father and elopes with Bassanio's friend Lorenzo. Launcelot Gobbo, Shylock's faithful servant, abandons his master and places himself in Bassanio's service. Bassanio solves the riddle that Portia's late father imposed on her potential suitors and wins Portia. Antonio goes bankrupt. Shylock demands revenge. He quotes the Venetian charter and the bond. The case arrives before the Venetian Duke who sends for a mysterious young lawyer (Portia disguised). Portia turns the entire case in Antonio's favour and practically destroys Shylock: she takes away his property and religion. As the only reward for his services, the mysterious lawyer demands from Bassanio the ring he had received from Portia. Bassanio parts with the ring although Portia has sworn him not to give it to anyone. In the end of the performance the young and successful Venetians gather in Portia's villa. The young and now successful Venetians celebrate triumph, but not all are happy. Jessica has understood that she has been robbed and cheated. The impoverished and aging Antonio is not welcome in the rich new society. Servant Launcelot Gobbo puts on the fascist uniform. Evil days are approaching.
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ABOUT THE DIRECTOR
EGON SAVIN is a professor of direction at the Faculty of Dramatic Art in Belgrade and at the FDA in Cetinje. He has directed plays in almost all significant theatres of former Yugoslavia, and his performances visited Nancy, Paris, Warsaw, Tel Aviv, Vienna, New York. He has won a number of awards for directing works of Yugoslav and foreign writers, several "Sterija's Awards", as well as "Bojan Stupica" awards. With immense success he has staged plays by Yugoslav and foreign classics, where he found concrete traces that reveal the fundamental power of theatre in our time, that bind both the works and their authors to the concrete area and period where and when the performance takes place, avoiding the dimension of the current political affairs, banality and political vulgarization.
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PRESS REVIEWS
The perplexity, as to what genre this play by Shakespeare belongs to, was solved radically by the director Egon Savin through giving it maximal topicality. He did not choose a picture postcard as the stage of events, but Tabacko's outstanding scenographic description of Venice as it has been from times immemorial - the picture of its magnificent, mysterious dilapidation that will last forever. However, with the help of vivid costumes by Kristina Ignjatovic and the allusions naturally derived from Shakespeare's text, the director has placed the action in the early nineteen thirties Italy, overcast by the shadow of coming fascism, poisoned by racism, xenophobia, violence and flouting the law - Shylock (Predrag Ejdus) to him is neither a comical character nor grotesque or evil, but simply a humiliated, exasperated man, ready to enter into a Faustian agreement with the devil himself in order to recover self-respect and the lost dignity, so as to value himself with more fairness
Vladimir Stamenkovic, Radical Topicality, NIN, 12 February 2004
Very important moments in the development of the theatre art are usually associated with the appearance of a significant play or an innovative concept of direction; rarely does it occur that an individual actor's creation. Such an extraordinary event is exactly what took place in the performance of The Merchant of Venice, where Dragan Micanovic, majestic in the famous part of his heroine, stood out from an otherwise excellently conducted ensemble performance & his Portia is an incomprehensibly rich and multy-layered character: she is bizarre and muscular while tolerating the hateful suitors, thrilled and vulnerable while abandoning herself to the adored Bassanio, shrewd and resolute while fighting at court, and calm, superior and very dangerous when discovering her sweetheart's betrayal - in that complex psychological shaping of Portia's character we see some of the most exciting sights of the performance take place: for example, the scene when she remains deeply wounded by the knowledge of Bassanio giving away her gift. In addition to its depth of interpretation, this part also characterized by excellent acting technique: from the immaculate articulation of the verse to the whole of pitch and posture that, not in the least obviously, sculpts the character of the opposite sex. In that context, the travesty scene is the most skilfully done, for in it Micanovic does not reveal his private, male body, but excellently plays the part of a woman playing the part of a man. Last, but not least - the actor has found the right measure of the dramatic and the comical in the character.
Ivan Medenica, Vreme, 12 February 2004
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