Review Roundup: THE MERCHANT OF VENICE with Jonathan Pryce

London's critically acclaimed Shakespeare's Globe, under the artistic direction of Emma Rice, will light up US stages and screens this summer and fall, with a three-city limited engagement of The Merchant of Venice, which will play limited engagements in New York, Washington, D.C. and Chicago in July and August. Two-time Olivier- and Tony Award-winner Jonathan Pryce stars as Shylock. The production is directed by Jonathan Munby.

Produced during Dominic Dromgoole's final season as artistic director, the Globe production of The Merchant of Venice premiered on May 1, 2015, receiving four and five-star rave reviews, including praise for Munby's production and for Pryce, making his Globe debut.

Let's see what the critics had to say...

Charles Isherwood, New York Times: Throughout the director Jonathan Munby's lucid and strongly acted staging, we will remain aware that while this Shakespearean play is classified as a comedy and is poised ambivalently between light and dark, it will generally be the baser aspects of humanity that prevail. This overriding tone, I'm sorry to say, seems eerily attuned to the current troubles that roil the world.

Emma Brockes, Guardian: The Merchant of Venice, playing this week as part of the Lincoln Center Festivaland on loan from The Globe Theatre in London, is the very best of what a traditional production can be, throwing light on the text but with enough new touches to preserve against boredom. It is also, as with every production of this particular play, a barometer for the anxieties of the times. Through subtle direction and inflection, the shading around Shylock, Antonio and even Portia is recalibrated to provoke or withhold sympathy in line with modern definitions of victimhood.

David Finkle, Huffington Post: It could be that Munby's extreme depiction of Shylock's relentless repudiation is the reason behind the moneylender's obdurate behavior during the trial of Antonio (Dominic Mafham). That's when Shylock insists on collecting Antonio's promised pound of flesh after his failing to repay the borrowed ducats. Shylock won't back down from his demands even when offered thrice what he's owed. Perhaps more than usually, spectators aware of the cruelty accorded Shylock may find themselves taking his side.

Linda Winer, Newsday: Director Jonathan Munby's handsome, modest, stylistically jarring production for Shakespeare's Globe is a mixed treasure. It is obnoxious in its audience-participation clowning, routine in too many major parts, but harrowing in its violent juxtaposition of the merry Venetian gentiles and their unspeakably casual cruelty to the Jews.

David Cote, TimeOut NY: If you thought the last you'd see of the High Sparrow was his horrified expression seconds before his sadistic ass was blown sky-high on several tons of wildfire (SPOILER ALE...oh, come on), well here comes Jonathan Pryce. The great English actor-who made Game of Thrones' smirking, soft-spoken High Sparrow a villain you love to hate-is now playing Shylock in the Shakespeare's Globe production of The Merchant of Venice, presented by Lincoln Center Festival through Sunday.

Marilyn Stasio, Variety: Jonathan Pryce makes a strong case for Shylock's infamous demand for a pound of flesh inShakespeare's Globe's gorgeously stylized production of "The Merchant of Venice." But in order to pull off this tricky adjustment to the most reviled Jewish character in dramatic literature, director Jonathan Munby had to flip the customary dynamic and turn Shylock's Christian adversaries into heartless fiends. The stagecraft is so stunning, and the acting so dazzling, you might think the play had actually been written this way.

Photo Credit: Walter McBride

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