Can art carry the baggage we put on it today?
Playing Shylock is a quick-witted and poignant one-man play that has been embraced by Toronto audiences and the Canadian media in its sold-out run at Canadian Stage.
The play opens as Saul Rubinek, playing a version of himself, walks on stage after intermission and announces to the audience that The Merchant of Venice has been cancelled due to a backlash the theatre can ill afford. Rattled, Saul shares his disappointment, what inhabiting the role of Shylock means to him personally, and his questions about the role of the artist and the theatre in today’s culturally fractured age. Saul asks us… “Can we share our common humanity if a hashtag, #Cancel Merchant, disables us from sharing our stories, our history, ourselves?”
#CancelMerchant is a feature-length documentary that captures a special performance of Playing Shylock at Canadian Stage. After the performance, the documentary invites a curated audience that represents the diversity of the Canadian public and artistic sector to join Saul in a thoughtful conversation about the questions raised in the play and the role of art in the discovery of our common humanity.
Adding further insight are interviews with the play’s actor Saul Rubinek, director Martin Kinch, writer Mark Leiren-Young, and producer Corey Ross. We will also include interviews with Canadian journalists and arts leaders who have seen the play and can speak to how it touches on to the broader issues the Canadian arts sector is experiencing at a time of a run of cancellations.
The Team:
The documentary is produced by Vérité Films (Corner Gas, the Governor General’s Performing Arts Awards) and Starvox Entertainment (Van Gogh Exhibit). Virginia Thompson (Vérité Films) and Corey Ross (Starvox) are Producers. The film is directed by Robert de Lint (Corner Gas, Kim’s Convenience, InSecurity, the Governor General’s Performing Arts Awards) in association with Martin Kinch. Writers are Robert de Lint in association with Mark Leiren-Young.
Reviews for Playing Shylock:
“Rubinek is simply magnetic… “Playing Shylock” reaches beyond Rubinek’s personal desires and biography to meditate directly on the purpose and challenge of art itself.”
“One of the most provocative and urgent shows of the year.”
“Impossible to ignore.”
“Theatre is consistently poised on a precipice where we worry that things will shut down because people care too little, or things will shut down because people care too much. In the nexus between those two states sits Saul Rubinek.”