THE MERCHANT OF VENICE
Produced and directed by Gerard Reidy
YORKSHIRE EVENING POST
Phoenix Contemporary Theatre Company have delivered a strong production of The Merchant of Venice, which graphically illustrates the plight of a race hounded through the centuries.
The word "Jew" is hurled across the stage time and time again. It is said with a sneer, it is mocked, derided, humiliated.
In this powerful version, Shylock is played by a woman. Patricia Leventon, herself Jewish, brings fine sensitivity to the role - decked out in soft trappings of cocktail dresses, earrings and pearls.
A voice on the radio keeps the audience in touch with events in Italy. The courtroom scene is filled with figures in black shirts.
All's well that ends well of course for the assorted Aryan couples, but our hearts inevitably go out to Shylock for whom there is no justice in the final analysis.
This is a well-cast challenging production, with Maggie Pike as Portia showing great versatility. Kevin Brock looks suitably pale and threatening as Antonio, and Paul Wimsett earnest as Bassanio.
KINGS LYNN NEWS
Phoenix Contemporary Theatre Company, which has grown in stature since its formation in 1983, by Gerard Reidy, Provided festival-goers with a somewhat novel version of Shakespeare's famous play The Merchant of Venice.
The strong cast wore costumes appropriate to the Italy of Mussolini and unfolded the familiar drama against a backdrop of pre-war fascism.
The stark set fitted the more sombre aspects of the story perfectly and never more so than in famous courtroom scene in which Shylock, demands her pound of flesh. Black draped tables. black clothed judge and lawyers and an inevitably black dressed Shylock created a sinister impression which conveyed the bleak terrorism of the times - be they 16th, or 20th centuries.
Patricia Leventon triumphed in the role of a female Shylock, and Oliver Lewis produced a minor classic in his own right as Arragon, one of the spurned princes claiming the hand of Portia.
Despite its historical update, the text remains almost completely faithful to the original, in a production which will go down as one of the most stunning ever seen at recent festivals.
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