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It is a common mistake to suppose that the title of The Merchant of Venice refers to Shylock. The merchant is Antonio; the mistake is a tribute to the extent to which Shylock has come to dominate the play. Yet Antonio is a central character too - Shylock's antagonist, victim and counterpart. Things go off-balance if he is pushed to one side.
It is clear from the start that there is no danger of that happening in Gale Edwards' production at the Festival Theatre, Chichester. Philip Quast's Antonio is the most impressive I can recall. He is invested not just with weight - a relatively easy matter, since Quast has a fine rich voice - but with positive heaviness. His depressed feelings are palpable. They are borne with dignity, but he can't help letting you know that they are there.
Never has it seemed more ovbious either, that he is suffering from unfulfilled love for Bassanio. The point is allowed to emerge naturally, without undue fuss. But we are also made to feel that his melancholia is bound up with his high-mindedness. In his case, at least it is a small step from self-denial to self-punishment? He is the impossible idealist, the buisnessman who never charges interest - who is finally ready to embrace martyrdom as his just fate.
That he should prove such a strong presence is just as well. If he didn't, the production might have been overwhelmed by Desmond Barrit's Shylock. For Barrit gives a truly notable performance - and even better one, in my opinion, than his RSC Falstaff.
There is nothing sentimental about it. Even at his best, this is a Shylock who is hard and businesslike. At his worst, he can be as implacable as the text (shaped by centuries of prejudice) requires. But he has his dignity. If he doesn't believe much in other men's goodwill, that isn't what life has taught him. His final "I am not well" is more tragic than many a leavetaking tragedy proper.
Elsewhere the production widely doesn't try to subvert the romantic elements in the play or strip them away. Instead, it accepts that they coexist with the ugly and aggressive elements - which is much more painful. Niamh Cusack makes a spirited Portia, though she seems rather more at home with the witty upper-class prattle of the early scenes than she does in the courtroom. Ed Stoppard and Alexandra Moen cut enough off a dash as Lorenzo and Kessica to make you momentarily forget how disagreeable they can be, Lorenzo especially.
There are some misjudgments. Barrit's "Hath no a Jew eyes?" doesn't need to be punched home with a sudden burst of heavy music, while the wailing melody at the climax of the trial - like something out of Fiddler on the Roof - is even less appropriate. Nor is anything gained by having Shylock splosh around in a canal after Jessica has disappeared. But these are only passing faults; the production as a whole is a great success.
