Heading:
Author: William Shakespeare
Title:
El Mercader de Venecia
Theatre
company: Teatro
Real Galo
Play’s director: Gustavo Galindo
Cast:
-
Iván
Luis (Antonio and Rajá de Maharashtra) www.elmundo.es/.../
-
Jesús
Gago (Shylock)
-
Carlos Gracia (Bassanio)
-
Maria
Muñoz (Portia)
-
Leticia
Acón (Nerissa)
-
Guillermo Berasategui (Dux and
Archuiduque del Turia)
Artistic
and technical cast:
-
Gustavo Galindo (free version
based on Jaime Clark translation)
30/10/07
-
Guillermo Berasategui (director’s
assistant) www.loquesomos.org/.../
-
Miguel
Gonzalez and Ivan Luis (lighting)
-
Teatro
Galo Real (wardrobe and stage design)
-
Michelle Man (choreography)
Date
and place of the representation: Teatro
Dramatis personae:
-
Antonio: This character was
interpreted by a slim actor with curly hair. He uses all the time a black suit
with a white shirt. He seems a weak character. His face was pale.
-
Raja de Maharashtra: This is a
comical character. He dresses with light colours, and funny clothes. He speaks
a bit strange and when he has to read the notes in the boxes he can not, he did
in a funny way as he was a child that is learning. His servant is very funny
too, he fight him. These two are very comical characters. When he enters in the
Portia’s room he was dancing. He acts in a silly way with her, dancing and
making jokes.
-
Shylock: This character is
interpreted by a strapping man, he seems very serious and with bad tempered. He
is Jewish and was resentful with Antonio. Always he was with a leather jacket.
-
Bassanio:
This character is interpreted by a young man that was well dressed with a black
suit when was with Antonio or Shylock and with a white suit when was with
Portia. He is in love with Portia therefore he try to look a rich man but he is
not a rich man and so he has to borrow money to Shylock, this is when the
problems begin.
-
Portia: This character was a young
woman but by her interpretation she seems to be a strong woman (with a strong
character. She is dressed with a thin white dress. When she is with her servant
she speak loudly as a Lord but when she is with her suitors she is sweet and
docile.
-
Nerissa:
She is in a part a comical character, when he is acting as a Portia’s servant.
And in the other hand he make a solo singing a song in
some scenes, as at the beginning of the plot. In some scenes she acts comically
as when Portia’s suitors arrive to open a box she invites them in a comical
voice. Also when the Archiduque del
Turia has to read and can not do it, she read for him
the note with a two-way.
-
Dux: I can not say so much about
the actor that interprets this character because this wears a mask and a tunic.
He was sitting on an imperial chair. He speaks with a low voice. He was
very strict and severe.
-
Archiduque
del Turia: This character
was pedant and self-centred. He speaks a mixture between Spanish and Catalan.
He speaks fanny and do not understand the note that he found in the box. Nerissa may read this note for him. He has a servant with
him. These two were dressed as a member of the royal court.
Stage:
There are two stages, one at the front and the other
at the back, there are a stair that communicate one with the other because the
stage at the front is much short than the other.
- The stage at the back:
At the beginning of the plot we can see it the back a
stairs at the left and a trunk with a cloth at the right. In the middle at the
front of the stage we see a small column with a chessboard that has some chess
pieces.
When the suitors come to try their own luck the
chessboard is on the other way round. Above the board we see three small
trunks, one yellow (gold), one bright grey (silver) and the other dark grey
(lead).
In the part that Bassanio
went to help Antonio, the stage change. Then, we see the trunk closed with the
stair behind and the cloth above the stairs and the trunk as a chair. The
column with the board was at the back.
-
The stage at the front:
This part has no objects is a rectangle with nothing.
This is where the men (Antoni, Bassanio
and Shylock) argued about the money, it seams as it was
Lighting:
there was a very big change in the lighting at the
beginning when Nerissa is singing her solo. Here
there are no lights. Only there is a small light by which we can see the
actress.
Wardrobe:
All the character are dressed in a contemporaneous
clothes. The difference between one and the other was the colours. The women
were with light colours, as Bassanio when is in
The
exception is Rajá that is dressed with fanny colours,
as yellow, orange, green, and with, more or less, Arabic clothes.
Atrezzo:
Is very poor the atrezzo that they use. In the stage
only have a column with a chessboard above, a trunk which have some books
inside, a cloth with a bright colour and a stairs. Portia use a book that seems
to be inside the trunks.
Theatre environment:
The day that I stayed in the theatre looking this comedy, we only have a bad
commentary, which was a mobile phone rang.
But
if we see the behaviour that have the people about the plot, I can say that the
part of the two suitors everybody laugh, overcoat when spoke the Archiduque del Turia,
that made a mixture between Spanish and Catalan.
Critic opinion:
When I go to see this
comedy, I have not read the Shakespeare’s one. So, when I go out only have a
small idea about the real story. But when I finish the Shakespeare’s comedy I
noticed the differences between one and the other. I read in the program that
this is a free version, and it is, in the performance we can not find Jessica,
Shylock’s daughter or Lorenzo who unleash Shylock’s anger. About the suitors we
only find two on them, and these two have changed the names, maybe because
these names where more funny. Although in the performance we can find some jokes
that make Nerissa or Rajá
that did not appear in the original.
In my opinion, this
performance is maybe faced to people that can or can not read the original
comedy but is they can understand the plot and when they go out the auditorium
they can say that they know how is, more or less, The Merchant of Venice.
Academic year 2007/2008
© a.r.e.a./Dr.Vicente Forés López
© Carmen Mora Vives
mamovi3@alumni.uv.es
Universitat de València Press