A slightly saucy look at Shylock

SARASOTA -- Shakespeare is the trial by fire for classically trained actors and for writers attempting to illuminate the Bard's words.

Gareth Armstrong acquits himself admirably on both counts in his play Shylock at the Asolo Theatre. Armstrong's view of one of Shakespeare's deepest characters is insightful, witty and brilliantly acted.

Armstrong fills the stage with characters, Shakespeare's and his. His comments on the play from which Shylock springs, The Merchant of Venice, are intelligent, slightly irreverent and fascinating. What could be a dry lecture has the juice of life as Armstrong plays characters ranging from the Jewish merchant to a psychoanalyst attempting to explain his behavior.

Armstrong takes the part of Shylock's best friend, Tubal, the only other Jew in Shakespeare's work. (Shakespeare, as Tubal makes clear, almost certainly never met a Jew in his life.) Tubal has eight lines in The Merchant of Venice (Shylock is in five of the play's 20 scenes), but the plot turns on them.

As Tubal, Armstrong gives us a survey of Shakespeare's work and enduring influence, from Shakespeare's favorite actor, Richard Burbage (who could recite eight of the Bard's lines on one breath, a trick Armstrong demonstrates for the audience) through Adolf Hitler, who loved The Merchant of Venice but had it revised to fit his anti-Semitic ideology.

"Who are the most well-known Jews in history?" he asks. "Jesus Christ, the Virgin Mary and Shylock. Who in Shakespeare's plays have become nouns? Romeo and Shylock."

He also performs scenes from Shakespeare's play in an abridged form with much of the original's impact. Shylock has been presented as a caricature and as a real man over the past four centuries, and Tubal explains and justifies both approaches.

Armstrong presents those who would change Shakespeare's words to avoid vulgarity with happy disdain, and those who would try to simplify Shylock as silly. Shakespeare knew that without vulgarity there is no whole man, and the whole man is what he was out to give us, whether we wanted it or not.

THEATER REVIEW

The final performance of Shylock is 8 p.m. Monday at the FSU Center for the Performing Arts, 5555 N Tamiami Trail, Sarasota. $15-$30. Toll-free 1-800-361-8388.

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