Arts & Manners: The Merchant of Narcissus

Harley Granville-Barker once described The Merchant of Venice as “a fairy tale”; his point had nothing to do with homosexuality. But Ellis Rabb, preferring his own talent to Shakespeare’s, decided to make homosexuality the chief point of his chic production of the play (currently at Lincoln Center). Like the dollar, Shakespeare is now devalued, his plays afloat on the day-today market, having only the value that now this bright director, now that dark European critic attaches to them. I found it morally repugnant to be asked to consider homosexual love between Antonio and Bassanio a noble alternative to a world of avarice and indolence. But more offensive than the perversion is the sheer perverseness of Rabb’s contorted reading of the. play.

Imagine a Portia who, in the trial scene, must strain to see to it that any mercy is done to Antonio because he is, after all, her fiance’s former lover, and you have an idea of the results of Rabb’s creation of a triangle out of Portia, Bassanio, and Antonio. Bassanio, you’ll remember, is the young man who seeks funds of the merchant Antonio to try for Portia’s hand. “To you, Antonio, I owe the most, in money and in love,” says Bassanio. “Aha!” says clever, urbane Ellis Rabb—and here we are in Visconti’s Venice: tanned Adonises in sunglasses, white slacks, and limp silk shirts, lolling in the sun taking photographs of each other. I never did understand what led Rabb’s Bassanio to select the casket of humble lead and win Portia, when he could have had the one with the mirror in it.

GW

About the Author

Gary Jay Williams

Featured Tags

Harley Granville-Barker once described The Merchant of Venice as “a fairy tale”; his point had nothing to do with homosexuality. But Ellis Rabb, preferring his own talent to Shakespeare’s, decided to make homosexuality the chief point of his chic production of the play (currently at Lincoln Center). Like the dollar, Shakespeare is now devalued, his plays afloat on the day-today market, having only the value that now this bright director, now that dark European critic attaches to them. I found it morally repugnant to be asked to consider homosexual love between Antonio and Bassanio a noble alternative to a world of avarice and indolence. But more offensive than the perversion is the sheer perverseness of Rabb’s contorted reading of the. play.

Imagine a Portia who, in the trial scene, must strain to see to it that any mercy is done to Antonio because he is, after all, her fiance’s former lover, and you have an idea of the results of Rabb’s creation of a triangle out of Portia, Bassanio, and Antonio. Bassanio, you’ll remember, is the young man who seeks funds of the merchant Antonio to try for Portia’s hand. “To you, Antonio, I owe the most, in money and in love,” says Bassanio. “Aha!” says clever, urbane Ellis Rabb—and here we are in Visconti’s Venice: tanned Adonises in sunglasses, white slacks, and limp silk shirts, lolling in the sun taking photographs of each other. I never did understand what led Rabb’s Bassanio to select the casket of humble lead and win Portia, when he could have had the one with the mirror in it.