If you haven’t yet booked for Polly Findlay’s new RST production of The Merchant of Venice then you should do. If justice is to be done it will be a complete sell out as soon as the press reviews come out.  It won’t be to everyone’s taste. Indeed there were some ’eminent Shakespearean scholars’  there tonight who said they didn’t like it. There isn’t a doublet and hose to be seen. The whole acting space isn’t  used because there is a mirrored backdrop between the proscenium arches.  Everything you see is on the thrust. The stage floor is also mirrored.  There is a lot of interaction between characters and members of the audience. Launcelot Gobbo positions himself in a seat in the stalls. The audience is therefore part of what is going on.  None of this, of course, is to everyone’s taste.

The same brilliantly shaped intelligence which characterised her production of Arden of Faversham in the Swan is in evidence here, not least in her collaboration with  the German designer Johannes Schultz and German composer Marc Tritschler whose atmospheric and vocal music brilliantly creates atmosphere for the play without ever obscuring or drowning the text. It is the restraint of this work which makes the effect so powerful. Much of the blocking is quite still. There are some exciting and vigorous moments but Polly’s Findlay’s intention (according Marc Tritschler’s article in the programme) was to emphasise the play’s ‘underlying threads of sadness and suffering’.

Most of The Merchant of Venice is in iambic pentametre. We know that. We also know that iambic pentametre is a natural speech rhythm. When you hear Ken Kwosu delivering it (he plays both Gratiano and Morocco), as brilliantly as you will hear,  you can understand why. But not only him. I appreciated the enormous amount of work which must have gone on to make everything everyone says appear like speech despite the verse conventions with which we are now largely unfamiliar. And yet, in the play’s most lyrical section in Belmont in the ‘This is the night’ passage ( all too often the point when you wonder how long it is to the next drink  or how long it will be to the end)  with Lorenzo and Jessica was beautiful,  riveting and very moving, a creation of the timeless moment of a new order when whether you were a Jew or a Christian didn’t matter. The cutting is very deft, too. Only the bits which a modern audience could not hope to understand were cut, with the result that the play is easy to follow and the action clear and swift.

One of the surprises is the portrayal of Antonio played by Jamie Ballard. He stands centre stage as the audience members enter the auditorium, restlessly brooding: a picture of displeased melancholy. The announcement of Bassanio’s entry comes immediately after Solanio’s accusation that Antonio must be in love and so the kiss between Bassanio and Antonio comes as no surprise, only its length and depth. We can see how Antonio might well be physically attracted to Bassanio, played extremely well by Jacob Fortune-Lloyd; it is harder to see why Bassanio fancies Antonio. Might it be his wealth because Bassanio tells us that this is why he is attracted to the ‘lady richly left’ in Belmont? The more we see of Antonio the less attractive he is. He is brooding, overly introverted and we believe everything Shylock says about Antonio’s treatment of him because we see Antonio’s hatred of usury, Jews and Shylock in particular. We are shocked at the Christian-gang-mentality of spitting at Shylock. Most of Antonio’s reactions throughout the play stem from his seething hatred and this helps to explain his besottedness with Bassanio. He encourages him to go to Belmont because if he discourages him he will lose him. Antonio’s fearful insecurities are also splendidly shown as he is strapped to the chair while Shylock prepares to take his pound of flesh. There are a few moments when we have a little sympathy for Antonio but we never like him.

Of course this portrayal of Antonio makes Shylock more sympathetic. His ‘sufferance’ contrasts favourably with Antonio’s bad temper and Makram J. Khoury’s brilliant underplaying of the character makes him real and believable. We, too, might want revenge had we been treated as Shylock is treated. Indeed almost the whole cast make the characters modern and believable and even when they don’t the way they are played is rooted in textual detail. Polly Findlay has an extraordinary knack of getting her actors to build character from the words they use so that previously unnoticed phrases in the text take on meaning.

I usually want to fast forward the casket scenes but in this production Ken Kwosu as Morocco and Brian Protheroe as Aragon are fully realised characters, not the usual cartoon versions. As well as being very easy on the eye James Corrigan’s Lorenzo is also believable and Scarlett Brookes is strong enough as Jessica to make us understand that in the modern world Jewish-Christian antagonisms are anachronistic and irrelevant. I enjoyed Patsy Ferran’s physically active and expressive performance as Portia although (as in almost every other production I have seen of this play) I didn’t really get how the charmingly naive young lady in Belmont could carry off the Balthazar trick. Clown-faced Launcelot Gobbo was given a few lines not written by Shakespeare but these were delightfully delivered by Tim Samuels  and in keeping with his characterisation. Look out for aural and visual surprises. It will be fascinating to see him play Shylock in the public understudy performance.

I thought this production was deeply rooted in textual interpretation and loved it for this reason. I liked the constant ticking of the pendulum, slower after the interval, and I admired the conceptual use of the mirrored floor and backdrop, complemented by direct address to and use of audience members, Â although I wasn’t convinced at a first viewing that the concept was particularly deep; the audience share the dilemmas of right, wrong, justice, hatred etc and we are reflected in the fabric of the play. What delighted me most, however, was the sudden awareness that something unexpected came from the words in the text. This happened many times during the evening, not least at the end when the ‘blessed candles of the night’ become literal.

This production is a million miles away from the RSC’s almost equally enjoyable last showing of The Merchant of Venice set in Las Vegas. It is edgy, modern and a visual and aural delight, full of inventiveness and an emotional roller-coaster. See it. I shall certainly see it again and it bodes well for Othello which opens next month with largely the same cast.