Richard Topol Photo by Pavel Antonov

In Golyak's adaptation, the setting is a late-night comedy studio at Christmas time (emphasizing the play's dominant Christianity), and the show's host, Antonio (T.R. Knight), abetted by a hapless assistant stage manager (Stephen Ochsner), warms up the audience. For tonight's episode of "The Antonio Show," the actors will be broadcasting a live performance of The Merchant of Venice. Antonio explains that historically the work is considered one of Shakespeare's "problem plays," and as a way to address the inherent difficulties, the team has done some "research" to make the play more accessible for modern audiences. As he also elucidates, Shakespeare was influenced by the broad comedy and stock characters of commedia dell'arte, which justifies their intention to reinterpret the play as a comedy, "full of laughs and young people in love."

What follows is a drawn-out, two-hour farcical sketch with missed cues, faulty microphones, and unmitigated overacting and mugging. Songs are interpolated, Shakespeare's sonnet "My Mistress' Eyes Are Nothing Like the Sun" is delivered as a hip-hop number, and the audience is instructed to applaud and boo throughout. This is The Merchant of Venice as if enacted by Alan Swann and the "Comedy Cavalcade" company from My Favorite Year or by the Rude Mechanicals' staging of Pyramus and Thisbe in A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Prior to the show, audience members receive a printed summary of Shakespeare's play, and midway through the first act there was a rustling of paper behind me as people tried to figure out what was going on. Allusions to "The Dating Game," "The Bachelorette," and Love Actually may resonate with contemporary audiences, but they don't clarify the plot. The narrative's comprehensibility is not helped by offering the play's exposition by Antonio and Salarino with two hand puppets manipulated and voiced by Knight.

The other characters are similarly exaggerated. Shylock (Richard Topol), imagined as a vampiric, melodramatic villain, appears wearing black frames, bulbous nose, and bushy eyebrows and moustache (commonly called Groucho glasses). He is covered in (presumably, Christian) blood. Portia (Alexandra Silber) is delineated as a vapid, Barbie-like figure, and her suitor Bassanio (José Espinosa) is a studly Ken-type given to wearing tight Adidas shorts and no shirt. Shylock's daughter Jessica (Gus Birney), who is in love with Lorenzo (Noah Pacht), is a libidinous teen who acts out her sexual fantasies with her dolls.

The genius of Shakespeare's plays is that they may have incorporated the commedia elements, but they push beyond them, providing layered and rich characterizations. The play within the play also slices and dices Shakespeare's original, cutting whole scenes and moving much of the fifth act to precede the climactic trial scene, which occurs in the fourth. Yet there are hopeful and ephemeral moments of what-could-have-been if a more subtle approach had been taken. For instance, when Topol removed his Groucho glasses and declaimed a searing "Hath not a Jew eyes?" monologue, I longed to see how he might have approached the part with more complexity.

The final image, which powerfully reveals the play's problematic and hotly debated underlying antisemitism, recalls the potent imagery Golyak brought to Our Class. (The creative team, including scenic designer Jan Pappelbaum, costume and properties designer Sasha Ageeva, lighting designer Seth Reiser, and composer/ sound designer Fedor Zhuravlev, contribute to the over-the-top and anarchic approach in which more is more.)

Most of the visuals, while underscoring the intellectual discourse around the text, lean into the silliness. For example, Shakespeare scholars have pointed to the homoerotic relationship of Antonio and Bassanio, and in this production, the male puppets are depicted in an act of fellatio. Other scholars have pointed to the play's radical gender dynamics and the empowerment of women when Portia assumes the identity of Balthazar, the lawyer, who frees Antonio from his pound-of-flesh contract. The gravitas is lost (and perhaps that's the point) to have Portia wearing a well-muscled Superman costume and assisted by her confidante Nerissa (Tess Goldwyn) dressed as Batman's Robin.

Unfortunately, Shakespeare has not fared well on the New York stages this fall. Currently on Broadway is a flashy and fast-paced Romeo and Juliet that is geared to a Tik-Tok sensibility. Kenneth Branagh's King Lear, now playing at The Shed, is heavily redacted and tonally confusing. At the risk of sounding like an elitist snob, the Bard deserves better. And so do we.