Transplanting “The Merchant of Venice” from late 16th-century Italy to post-Civil War Washington, D.C., during the Reconstruction years is a simple enough matter: Change the characters to Americans, tweak the dialogue, and there you have it.
Only what Aaron Posner has accomplished with “District Merchants” far exceeds a mere change of backdrop.
South Coast Repertory’s production of the 2016 play proves Posner’s ingenious, even audacious, jujitsu-like morphing of potentially nettlesome traits into strengths. If anything, the reimagining is at least twice as potent, comedically and dramatically, as its source.
Director Michael Michetti’s remarkable, powerhouse staging serves even the most intricate aspects of a deep, thoughtful comedy that’s an expansive, notably elastic view of issues that belie America’s long-held vision of itself as a haven for all races and nationalities.
Posner’s theatrical sleight-of-hand imbues 1870s characters with 21st-century attitudes, speech and sensibilities, which get us laughing while also forcing us to examine our own hypocrisies.
The story’s focal duo of Shylock (Matthew Boston) and Antoine (Montae Russell), and its three potential couples, offer complex prisms that illustrate intricate concepts of bigotry, racism, ethnicity, sexism, integrity and fairness. Also examined: double standards toward blacks, women and immigrants, and the class system that arose during the Gilded Age.
Setting things in motion: Antoine borrows $3,000 from Shylock to give to pal Bassanio (Chris Butler), who needs the money to court the highborn, elegant Portia (Helen Sage Howard Simpson).
The penalty for failure to repay the loan, agreed to by Antoine, is “a pound of flesh” that Shylock will carve from Antoine’s body with his own blade.
Complicating Bassanio’s plans is that he’s of mixed race — half black, but “passing” among whites as one of their own.
While Bassanio pursues Portia, his young Irish pal Finn (Matthew Grondin), who is routinely dismissive of Jews, has become smitten with Shylock’s daughter Jessica (Rachel Esther Tate).
Not even the possible romance of young black servants Nessa (Kristy Johnson) and Lancelot (Akeem Davis) is as uncomplicated as you might expect.
At key points, each character halts the action, opening up to us one-on-one, then offering insightful self-analysis. Just one example of this brilliantly meta-theatrical concept is how Shylock and Antoine greet us at the top of both the play’s halves.
The pair’s offhand banter is generally amiable but also touches some nerves, as during their testy discourse regarding black slavery, through which both men made their fortunes and which Shylock asserts is at “the heart of the American economy.”
“Merchants” depicts a Shylock seething with hatred for a lifetime of being mocked, hated and disparaged — and spoiling for revenge, even if it’s misguided to include Antoine, who has shown him only friendship and respect.
Through vehement growls and curt impatience, Boston gives us Shylock’s bitterness and barely suppressed rage, the character’s diction an odd mash-up of Yiddish, Hebrew and American English.
Born a free man, Antoine is broad-minded, cosmopolitan and socially tolerant, and Russell portrays him as elegant, articulate and personable.
Butler’s lightly singsong Southern accent and easygoing manner suggest myopia toward, and lack of deep concern for, the harmful impact Bassanio’s actions have on both Antoine and Portia.
Simpson’s brainy, quick-thinking, fast-talking Portia is a highly compelling character in a play filled with them. The dance between her and Bassanio involves each struggling to reconcile the disparities between their outward facade and true selves.
Chafing to escape dad Shylock’s hold on her even while true to her Jewish faith, Jessica is modest, prim and proper, but also forthright whether dealing with Shylock’s repressive parenting or Finn’s sweetly goofy courtship of her.
Grondin’s blunt Finn is comically loosey-goosey, his locution typifying urban Ireland and his contradictory nature involving dislike of Jews yet true love for Jessica, which deeply mystifies him.
With his modern (for us) urban street-speak, Davis’ Lancelot would fit right into today’s U.S., and Johnson’s Nessa is eminently practical — were the story set in 2016, she’d be a girl-pal equal to Portia.
While much of “Merchants” posits that fear, mistrust and hatred are human nature, the play ends on an unequivocal note of hope.
The script’s mixture of various accents, speech from vastly different regions and periods, and disparate theatrical styles might at first appear impossible to reconcile. Seeing SCR’s sublimely engaging “District Merchants,” it’s hard to imagine any other approach.
Freelance writer Eric Marchese has covered the arts in Southern California since the 1980s.
‘District Merchants’
Rating: 3.5 stars.
Where: South Coast Repertory Theater, Julianne Argyros Stage, 655 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa.
When: Through Oct. 23.
Tickets: $22-$79.
Length: 2 hrs., 30 min.
Suitability: Adult language and content.
Information: 714-708-5555, www.scr.org.
