THE MERCHANT OF VENICE, ACT SIX

My secret life has been pretty much exposed: for the past two years I've been writing a play. Its working title is The Merchant of Venice, Act Six, which gives you some idea of both its content and, if you know me at all, how it dovetails with the rest of my life.

And I guess the title is self-explanatory: it picks up the action of Shakespeare's Merchant where Act 5 leaves it. But isn't that the end of the play, you ask? Well, yes, but Shakespeare's comedies are famous for their irresolution; there are always more questions than answers. That's why, back in the 1930s, the sub-genre of "problem comedies" was invented -- to describe plays in which the happy ending is problematic. The most famous examples are Measure for Measure and All's Well That Ends Well, but Merchant finds its way into the category by virtue of the fact that the three marriages that end it are each made at least as much for money as for love. So I thought it would be interesting to look at the three couples (plus poor Antonio, who at the end of the play is rich but single) a year later, and see what accommodations they've made.

The problem with my own problem play is that I couldn't have written a less commercial piece of theater if I'd set out to do it. Unless my audience is fairly familiar with Shakespeare's work, they'll have no idea what the questions to which I'm supplying answers are. So I've brought in a technological solution. I've set my play in the present, in order to make it possible for a huge TV monitor to dominate the set, and on this screen, periodically, excerpts from Shakespeare's Merchant appear, to introduce and provide exposition for my own scenes.

Whether this will work or not remains to be seen. The first half of MV6 was given a reading last March by The Naked Stage at Guild Hall in East Hampton, as part of an evening devoted to airing the work of new local playwrights. It was extremely helpful to me to watch and listen to an audience watch and listen to my play, and to hear their comments afterwards; I've spent the last couple of months revising. And of course, it was a thrill to hear my words spoken by real live actors -- Molly McKenna as Portia, Josh Perl as Bassanio, Melissa Herman as Jessica and Joseph Brodo as Lorenzo. I read the stage directions.

Where do we go from here? I've been sending the script to people who might be able to arrange for a reading or a workshop in New York. If there is an audience for this play, that's where it is -- the issues of both my and Shakespeare's take on Renaissance Venice have a lot to do with Jewish questions, and an audience already interested in intermarriage, dietary laws and circumcision would be of enormous help. Whatever the outcome, though, it's been fun to make a text rather than just interpret one.