Gurney Updates Bard in ‘Overtime’ : Theater review: The Old Globe production follows up on Shakespeare’s ‘Merchant’ in a setting much like ’95 N.Y.

Imagine that “The Merchant of Venice” is over and that its characters have all been transported to a culturally diverse city that is called Venice but is very much like New York, 1995. In other words, the play has gone into overtime, where “all the rules have changed.” That is the title and the premise of the new A. R. Gurney comedy, “Overtime,” currently having its premiere at the Old Globe Theatre.

A writer known for finely observed cultural detail, Gurney has here written a love roundelay and broad farce, a comedy so determined to trot out every ethnic and sexual identity that it barely has any personality of its own. The setting is Belmont, Portia’s estate, where the heroine is throwing a party to celebrate her marriage to Bassanio and to encourage the community to move on after “a little difficulty about money.” Bassanio, we all remember, borrowed money from his friend Antonio, who borrowed the money from Shylock. The moneylender demanded a pound of flesh when Antonio failed to repay him, sending anti-Semitic Venice into a tizzy. They all wound up in court, where Portia made a ringing if facile speech about justice and mercy, and Shylock got neither.

In Gurney’s follow-up, Portia has become a Martha Stewart-like perfect hostess but with fascistic overtones. Her serene, grand-lady-of-the-manor thing just doesn’t wash in 1995, especially when the minor characters begin feeling rather unsubservient. For one thing, Nessia (Angela Lanza) comes to understand that she is not Portia’s companion but is in fact an unpaid maid. She rebels, starts speaking Spanish and calls Portia a “bruja” (witch). The glue of Shakespeare’s society has been melted in a modern instance.

“Overtime” is a jokey, pun-filled take on the kind of racial and ethnic discussions that “The Merchant of Venice” has always provoked. Here the issues are no longer only between the good citizens of Venice and the Jew, Shylock. Now everyone has a say. Gratiano (Sterling Macer Jr.) is rediscovering his African American roots. Antonio (Tom Lacy) comes proudly out of the closet, wearing a lavender ascot. Shylock’s daughter Jessica (Wendy Kaplan) skips from Lorenzo, who she loved because he didn’t treat her like a Jewish American Princess, to a Chinese waiter and then to a female lover, causing Shylock (Nicholas Kepros) to spew several “Oys,” in perfect sitcom succession.

In the center is Portia (Joan McMurtrey), who still has three suitors despite her unconsummated marriage to Bassanio (Bo Foxworth), a homophobic jock. A change in century has shown Portia to be what many of us suspected--shallow, perky and high-handed, and a bit Valley Girlish to boot. But this is a play that encourages us to see the best in others. So Shylock, of all people, offers us a view of Portia as a woman who brings people together in a true democratic spirit, primarily through her party-giving abilities.

In Nicholas Martin’s intermittently funny production, Gurney seems to be doing some unconvincing cheerleading for democracy. But his points are too obvious and unobjectionable to be relevant to any real discussions about race relations in the 1990s. The trouble is that Gurney, who is such an insightful and compassionate chronicler of the WASP experience in America, has aimed too broadly. He delivers only warmed-over bromides about how we all have to be ourselves and get along.

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The play has an uncomfortable fuddy-duddy quality to it; it’s like a guy in golf pants and white shoes doing what he believes is the newest dance. Many of the jokes also seem too old to have much effect. When Portia asks Shylock if he is flirting with her, he responds, “If the shoe fits. . . . I can get it for you wholesale!”

In his quest for total tolerance, Gurney runs into trouble when he finds one character he just can’t tolerate. That character, secretly a Serb, is branded a villain for his nation’s lack of tolerance toward other races.

A Jewish wanna-be, Lorenzo (David Aaron Baker), delivers the play’s funniest speech, a Jackie Mason-esque rant about why Jewish culture is best. Later he switches alliances and does the same for WASP culture (the only two cultures that Gurney writes about with any real feeling). Here the play is at its best, because the speech is fueled and colored by the neurosis of the character making it.

Without that extra layer, “Overtime” only weakly hits its marks. Because, basically, one hopes, we all already know that tolerance is good.

* “Overtime,” Old Globe Theatre, Balboa Park, San Diego, Tues.-Sun., 8 p.m.; Sat.-Sun., 2 p.m. Ends Aug. 20. $20-$36. (619) 239-2255. Running time: 2 hours, 20 minutes.

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Joan McMurtrey: Portia Bo Foxworth: Bassanio Angela Lanza: Nerissa Sterling Macer Jr.: Gratiano Wendy Kaplan: Jessica David Aaron Baker: Lorenzo Tom Lacy: Antonio Nicholas Kepros: Shylock David Ledingham: Salerio An Old Globe Theatre production. By A. R. Gurney. Directed by Nicholas Martin. Sets by Robert Morgan. Costumes by Michael Krass. Lights by Kenneth Posner. Sound by Jeff Ladman. Stage manager Raul Moncada.