October 5, 2007
By Barbara Vitello
Daily Herald Critic at Large
If Shishir Kurup doesn't solve all the problems inherent in Shakespeare's thorny The Merchant of Venice, he at least assigns culpability objectively in his droll, Bollywood-inspired Merchant on Venice. Silk Road Theatre Project's world premiere, a sparkling production directed by Stuart Carden, opened recently at the Historic Chicago Temple Building.
Setting his version among Indian immigrants, Kurup - a Bombay-born writer-actor-director - substitutes Hindus and Muslims in modern-day Venice, California, for Christians and Jews in 16th-century Italy .
But the essentials remain: a community steeped in bigotry; an outsider vilified by the majority; a victim turned victimizer; a daughter who chafes under her father's strict rules; and a young man who woos for love and profit.
Kurup has revised the ending, removing the forced religious conversion and replacing it with a threat that resonates (uncomfortably) in the post-9/11 era. His ending is both more hopeful and more ambiguous than Shakespeare's. The penultimate scene hints at a possible reconciliation between devout Muslim Sharuk, the Shylock character played by the dynamic Anish Jethmalani with a combination of pathos and rage, and his willful daughter Noorani (Sadieh Riffai). And Carden's final image suggests detente but not acceptance between Sharuk and his rival, the titular Hindu merchant Devendra (Kamal Hans), who, to secure a loan for his beloved friend Jitendra (Andy Nagraj), puts up as collateral a precious pound of flesh.
But it's Kurup's wit and wordplay ("Will The Circle Be Unbroken" lyrics become a pun on the Hindu word for brother) and the pop culture references (everything from GlaxoSmithKline, The Clash and the Rat Pack to Fred Segal and Paris Hilton) peppering the play that make it so palatable to a 21st century audience.
That said, the pepper becomes a bit overpowering at times, and some questionable staging during a couple highly charged scenes obscures the actors' faces from most of the audience. But on the whole, this show delights.
Taking a page from Bollywood's playbook, Merchant on Venice exploits the country's cinematic conventions by incorporating a couple of merry production numbers featuring the actors lip-syncing to hip-hop and pop-infused Indian tunes. Set designer Lee Keenan uses a few elements - the lower half of a highway billboard and a weed-choked brick wall - to suggest Venice, and an ocean view projected on a screen to suggest Caramel (which substitutes for Belmont ).
Tariq Vasudeva nearly steals the show with his comic performance as Sharuk's bumbling servant Tooranpoi. But he gets some competition from Marvin Quihada's super-swank Frank Sinatra-wannabe Amithaba (the Gratiano role), "decked out in sharkskin and armed with a rapier quip."
Rounding out the cast are Pranidhi Varshney as Pushpa (the Portia counterpart); Gerardo Cardenas as Armando, the Catholic boy in love with Noorani; Madrid St. Angelo and Vincent P. Mahler as Devendra's buddies; and Amira Sabbagh as Pushpa's friend and confidant, Kavita. It's Kavita who finally stops the madness with an eloquent plea for tolerance and forgiveness that recognizes Hindu complicity in perpetuating prejudice and hatred (something Shakespeare's Christians never admit). It's in that speech - a quiet but powerful reminder that we can preserve our humanity if we wish to - that Kurup solves Shakespeare's problem.
Bravo.