James Ricks, artistic director of Henley Street Theatre Company, has opened the group's fifth season with Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice."
It's a remarkable production in two ways: first, it inaugurates the handsome new black box theater at SPARC (School of the Performing Arts in the Richmond Community); and second, it teleports the merchant and his antagonists to the present.
We know we're in modern Venice because the characters wear contemporary clothes and work on laptop computers. It's jarring at first to hear flowery iambic pentameter come out of their mouths, but after a few moments it starts to work.
Some of the actors are more successful than others at making the language sound natural in this context. Kim Jones Clark, who plays the merchant Antonia (that's the male Antonio in the original), is adept at this, as is Jeff Clevenger, whose deftly underplayed Shylock conjures less pathos and more compassion than Shylock normally does.
There's some sense to viewing the play through this lens — it comes down to a loan contract that's fiercely negotiated because Shylock wants revenge for Antonio's anti-Semitic treatment of him.
But there's another play going on, one with elements of comedy and fairy tales and the love stories of Bassanio and Portia, Nerissa and Gratiano, Jessica and Lorenzo. Ricks puts lots of energy into the comedy, eliciting broad performances from Adam Mincks and Keydron Dunn as Portia's disappointed suitors.
Most of the lovebirds talk like characters out of "How I Met Your Mother" even as they speak in verse. It's an achievement, and it keeps things lively, but it prevents the audience from being drawn fully into the action.
Liz Blake White and Kerry McGee are appealing as Portia and Nerissa, while Adrian Grantz's Gratiano and Phil Vollmer's Launcelot Gobbo are amusing. But Greg Joubert's Bassanio is low on energy and bland in personality — it's hard to understand why he would command Antonia's loyalty and Portia's love.
Ricks and Clevenger designed the minimal set, Andrew Bonniwell's lights flesh the environment out a bit, and Stephanie O'Brien's costumes are fashionable.
The new auditorium provides fine sightlines and good acoustics; audiences can look forward to many productions in this promising space, a major upgrade from Henley Street's previous Pine Camp home.
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