Was The Merchant of Venice responsible for the Holocaust? It's a startling proposition but, seeing as playwright Julia Pascal has decided to link Shylock's treatment with the inhuman events in the Warsaw Ghetto, it's one that merits further exploration. Unfortunately, Pascal leaves her thesis dangling, dons a director's hat and gets on with the bog-standard business of staging Shakespeare.
If only Pascal had had the courage of her convictions and written a play about The Merchant of Venice. It seems initially she has, as elderly Sarah (Ruth Posner) chats with her tour guide in modern-day Venice, on the site of that city's ghetto. Sarah, it transpires, escaped her parents' Treblinka fate by pretending to be Catholic. Medieval anti-Semitism, she feels, has much to answer for.
Just when this is shaping up, the rest of the cast bounces on. They are, wouldn't you know it, English actors assembled in the ghetto for the dress rehearsal of their production of The M of V. The rehearsal status, it soon becomes clear, is given so that a group of nubile young lovelies can dash around in sports bras and poor old Sarah can sit - and sit - and spectate.
A slightly edited version of the original text follows, with Pascal offering the odd, incongruous modern interjection. Portia tells us that she's learning samba; Bassanio, who kisses Antonio full on the lips, doesn't need to tell us that he's sexually confused.
Mercifully, Pascal has assembled an impressive cast and stages the action with pleasing fluidity. We've virtually forgotten all the extratextual speculation, when Shylock (excellent Paul Herzberg) starts to lighten his daughter Jessica's hair with lemon. Then Sarah intervenes to warn her about Lorenzo's infidelity. Pascal is not going to let her theory rest.
So it continues, with the focus on Jessica and her conversion to Christianity, which Jodie Taibi brings off with dignity. Belatedly, the spotlight swivels to Portia (Miranda Pleasence) but the audience is left confused. Why didn't (doesn't) Pascal simply write a two-hander for Sarah and Jessica?
Until 13 October. Information: 020 7503 1646; www.arcolatheatre.com
The Merchant Of Venice
Arcola Theatre
Arcola Street, E8 2DJ
