NORTHERN Broadsides like to take the direct route, not the coastal path or country lane.

The Merchant Of Venice may trouble others, being deemed one of Shakespeare's most difficult plays on account of its perceived anti-Semitism, yet director Barrie Rutter is happy to splash about in its complexities.

Barrie, who prefers to sign off his programme notes with a no-nonsense Rutter, is blunt in his assessment of Shakespeare's story of the Jewish moneylender Shylock and his battle of wills with Portia.

"This play does end up as a romantic comedy but the air of discomfort in it is deliberate on Shakespeare's part. You've got to let yourself squirm and then laugh. That's why I haven't taken any line on this play except to demand passion," he says.

Shakespeare confronts the best and worst of human nature in a drama filled with the bitter words of hate and the sublime poetry of love.

"I've had to really work the actors to be romantic in this play, and that's not easy, particularly when you're being awful about a Jew one moment, then singing a song the next," says Barrie.

He does not hold truck with interpretations of The Merchant Of Venice that take the play out of its Venetian setting and into a more modern world. "Where's the enigma in putting it in a concentration camp. There's no period setting in our version: I never have done that. Period settings can hang you," he says.

"If you set it in modern times with modern accoutrements, then Romeo could phone Juliet, and what would be the play in that? People thought Baz Luhrmann was being clever in his Romeo And Juliet film when he had the word 'sword' coming out of a gun when it fired, but I didn't think so. To me, he just seemed to acknowledge it should really have been a sword."

Barrie is not only directing the Broadsides production but also playing Shylock, and he knocks back any suggestion that Shylock is a troublesome role.

"I don't think it's difficult at all; it is the study of Shylock that's problematic. If any play has had the 20th century thrown at it, it is this one," he says.

He believes much hypocrisy surrounds this play.

"Venice was the original Jewish ghetto city more than 400 years ago, and it was the Venetian use of the yellow star that the Nazis nicked. And remember, it used to be the law of our land that we had to hate the French," he says.

Only once before has Barrie seen a production that "put the play back in the camp of Portia".

"That was Jude Kelly's production at the West Yorkshire Playhouse," he says. "Apart from her show, they have always been top heavy with Shylock and the Jewish question, but in Shakespeare's play it isn't a Jewish question, and I'm not going to colour it with that."

Northern Broadsides, The Merchant Of Venice, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, Tuesday to Saturday; West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds, April 5 to 17. Box office: Scarborough, 01723 370541; Leeds, 0113 213 7700.

Updated: 15:44 Thursday, February 26, 2004