Yeah, comedy always ages poorly. Even 40 year old comedy movies are often weak now. With 400 year old comedies it's surprising anything works.
Twelfth Night is actually one of the better ones. With some skillful editing and a good dose of physical comedy (basically you can write your own jokes), it can be entertaining. There's practically no salvaging something like Measure for Measure or All's Well That Ends Well.
Merchant... is complicated. (I have thoughts. I played a very well-received Shylock a few years back.) Think of it as a tragedy with some comic sub-plots. Which isn't unlike the tragedies, which also have comic sub-plots.
Even so, it's just a weird goddamn play. It is a tragedy that ends in act 4, followed by a really dumb romantic comedy one-act. The audiences comes out feeling, well, ooky. And you just gotta lean into that.
Twelfth Night is actually one of the better ones. With some skillful editing and a good dose of physical comedy (basically you can write your own jokes), it can be entertaining. There's practically no salvaging something like Measure for Measure or All's Well That Ends Well.
Merchant... is complicated. (I have thoughts. I played a very well-received Shylock a few years back.) Think of it as a tragedy with some comic sub-plots. Which isn't unlike the tragedies, which also have comic sub-plots.
Even so, it's just a weird goddamn play. It is a tragedy that ends in act 4, followed by a really dumb romantic comedy one-act. The audiences comes out feeling, well, ooky. And you just gotta lean into that.