Hello, everyone! My name is Grace Schmidt, and I will be following in former “Art Actually” blogger Paige Cooperstein‘s footsteps this semester as the new arts blogger. I am excited to explore and blog about the wide range of artsy-related events offered here at Penn State, from musical theatre shows to poetry readings.

Last week, the Center for the Performing Arts presented the Actors from the London Stage performance of The Merchant of Venice, a William Shakespeare play that centers around a merchant, Antonio, who signs a bond agreeing to allow the lender to cut off a pound of his flesh if he fails to repay his debt. A host of other subplots–such as the courtship of Portia, who can only marry after her suitors solve an elaborate puzzle her father created, and the rebellion of Jessica, a Jewish daughter who runs away to marry a Christian–intertwine and create a breadth of characters.

As I sat in the audience prior to the show, I wondered how five actors would be able to put on the entire show, which includes twenty vastly different characters. It didn’t take long for me to become extremely impressed by how quickly the actors were able to transform into entirely different personas without even leaving the stage or substantially changing their costumes or props. They repeatedly demonstrated their ability to adapt, swiftly taking on the often diverging motivations, resentments, and back stories of the various characters they portrayed.

For example, one actor took on the roles of both Jessica and Nerissa and switched back and forth between them, differentiating the two by wearing a piece of cloth as a shawl when playing Nerissa and then wrapping it around her head when performing Jessica’s parts.

In some instances, the actors even played several different characters in one scene, which I think added a lot to the humor of the show. As I learned in my sophomore Shakespeare class, The Merchant of Venice is one of Shakespeare’s more controversial plays because it grapples with issues of prejudice and the concepts of justice and mercy. There has traditionally been debate over whether it is a comedy, and it is often labeled as a tragic comedy due to its heavy themes and dramatic scenes. Ultimately, the switching back and forth between characters in a single scene, such as when the one actor transformed from doomed Antonio into the clown figure Lancelot, added substantially to the comedy of the performance.

The stamina, energy, and talent that the actors brought to their unconventional portrayal of the play (without elaborate sets, costumes, crew, or even a director) amazed me. The Actors from the London Stage are made up of five British artists who travel to perform at different universities, seeking to make Shakespearean plays more accessible to modern day audiences, according to the program. In my view, they were definitely successful.

Photo Credit: Peter Ringenberg