THEATER REVIEW

"The Merchant of Venice" / Grade: A

The collateral that Shylock demands from the Merchant of Venice is enough to make you squirm.

If the merchant Antonio can't repay his loan in time, Shylock reserves the right to cut a pound of flesh from the debtor's body. And in the suspenseful courtroom scene of the problematic play, the Jewish money-lender comes within a hair's breadth of carving a chunk out of his enemy's bosom.

"The Merchant of Venice" —- which traffics in brutal anti-Semitic language, Jewish stereotypes and what modern audiences would label as hate crimes—- can make for uneasy and troubling theatergoing. Fortunately, director Sabin Epstein's new Georgia Shakespeare production chooses to emphasize the frothy romantic comedy swirling around the nasty business.

This "Merchant of Venice" is a ravishingly appointed, cleverly conceived affair that strikes just the right tone —- luxuriating in the Bard's sparkling wit and evincing superb performances from the ensemble.

Epstein's top-notch design team puts all the action of Venice and Belmont in a marvelously scaled 19th-century drawing room, where the ladies flutter about in drop-dead gorgeous gowns and elegantly suited men sip brandy and espresso from delicate porcelain cups.

Leslie Taylor envisions an opulent, black-walled interior stencilled all over with an essential bit of text. Mike Post lights the stage with a painterly eye. And Christine Turbitt outfits the company in truly breathtaking costumes.

Portia, a wealthy heiress with a steady procession of suitors, makes quite an entrance, hurling a bouquet of long-stemmed roses to the floor. Portia is one of Shakespeare's smartest female characters, and Park Krausen imbues her with whip-smart authority and delicious comedic flair. (Notice the way Portia glibly mocks the accents of her German and English callers.)

In the much smaller part of Portia's "waiting gentlewoman," Tess Malis Kincaid also cuts an elegant figure —- and she even gets to sing.

Allen O'Reilly's Antonio (the merchant) is by turns monstrous and sympathetic. Antonio's friends —- Daniel Thomas May as Solanio, Brad Sherrill as Salerio and Chris Ensweiler as the foolish Gratiano —- are spot-on in their characterizations, and a seriously handsome bunch to boot. Enoch King, as Shylock's clown Launcelot, is delightful, and Hudson Adams is rich and ribald in a variety of roles. (Adams' decrepit, asthmatic-sounding Prince of Aragon is particularly funny.) As Bassanio, the man who finally conquers Portia, Joe Knezevich gives a delicately nuanced and highly sensitive reading of a man in love. Perfect.

Finally, Chris Kayser, one of the busiest actors in town, wholly reinvents himself as Shylock. With his ethnic accent and swarthy countenance, his Shylock is the ultimate outsider but never a caricature.

By decree of her father's will, Portia's suitors determine their fate by choosing blindly from a trio of boxes: one gold, one silver and one lead. As the tale attests, everything that glitters is not gold. But in the world of this complicated and controversial story of money and love, it doesn't hurt that the material trappings are so nice to look at.

THEATER REVIEW

"The Merchant of Venice"

Grade: A

Through Aug. 2. In rotating repertory with "As You Like It" and "All's Well That Ends Well," opening July 11. $15-$40. Georgia Shakespeare, Oglethorpe University, 4484 Peachtree Road, Atlanta. 404-264-0020, gashakespeare.org.

Bottom line: Exquisite in every detail.