BENGALURU: Ever since theatre director S Surendranath watched Guy Masterson performing Shylock, the idea of taking a re-look at the character has played on his mind.
That was a couple of years ago, part of a solo festival that came straight from Edinburgh. Now, troupe Sanket is all set to open his own production with the Shakespearean villain as the central character on Thursday.
The 60-minute English play -- Surendranath’s very first, so he has ‘butterflies in my stomach’ -- he insists is largely Shakespeare.
“I have only edited it (lines from The Merchant of Venice), and probably included bits from (Christopher Marlowe’s) The Jew of Malta to give it a few twists,” he says.
That said, however, he explains that while the earlier production on Shylock that held theatre lovers rapt at Ranga Shankara was from the perspective of title character and his friend Tubal, also a moneylender, played by a single artiste, this one will see two actors on stage, bringing Shylock and Antonio alive.
“In The Merchant of Venice, considered a comedy, Shylock is the villain, one that cannot be taken seriously at that,” says the artistic director of Ranga Shankara. “And that’s how he was played during Shakespeare’s time.”
In the 1700s, though, he says, people started questioning this portrayal of Shylock, different versions of the character have existed ever since – in productions as well as in literature.
The moneylender lived in a ghetto outside Venice that everyone of his faith were condemned to from sundown to daybreak. “So in my play Shylock is a minority, and not necessarily only representing Jews,” the director says.
Though the script has references to Venice, where the 16th century playwright set it, the characters -- a businessman and a pawn broker -- ‘look Indian and have been transposed to today’s day and age’.
“You only have to look around and, even today, you can find Dalits confined to dwellings in Harijan colonies, and ghettos where Muslims live,” he says. “So it’s not a reference to any particular minority.”
The play humanises Shylock, and shows him clearly as the wronged rather than as the villain.
“And here, after Antonio spits on him, unlike in The Merchant of Venice, here Shylock insists on the bond,” he says. “He is hurt at being mocked at and uses it to mock at Antonio.”
The ‘bond’, he adds, has two meanings: the relationship between the two men, and the agreement.
Surendranath is known for adapting Shakespeare to Kannada, and Indianising him too. Maari Kaadu, Chandrashekar Kambar’s folklore adaptation of Macbeth; Neenaanaadre Naaneenenaa, Comedy of Errors set in Malleswaram.
“Next, I plan to do Othello. Shakespeare is the best playwright to pick up for adaptation. He’s always current, and you don’t have to worry about copyright,” he jokes.
Sanket presents Shylock, at Ranga Shankara, on Thrusday and Friday at 7.30 pm, and on Saturday at 3.30 and 7.30 pm. Tickets, priced at Rs 150, are available at the venue and on Bookmyshow