This Modern Bard Doesn’t Translate

“A Pound of Flesh,” writer-director Todd Alcott’s new modern-language adaptation of Shakespeare’s “The Merchant of Venice,” makes a seriously intentioned but uneven debut at the Heliotrope Theatre.

Replete with trendy slang (“Portia--there is no substitute”) and four-letter expletives, Alcott’s most significant accomplishment is nailing the Bard’s condemnation of hypocrisy in no uncertain terms. Of all Shakespeare’s comedies, “Merchant” is the bitterest--most of its protagonists are flawed to the point of unlikability, and even the norm that reasserts itself in the end is an unsavory, racially intolerant status quo.

Nevertheless, Alcott’s update is often at interpretive odds with its source. Reinventing Portia (Melanie Hall) as a vain, giggly and ditsy party girl, for example, makes her later courtroom agility jarringly incongruous. And while the aptly monikered Adam Bitterman’s powerful portrayal of the raging Shylock makes a handsome centerpiece for the production, the Jew is such an unambiguous victim that the interpretation glosses over the strain of anti-Semitism embraced by Shakespeare’s problematic text.

As it stands, Alcott’s effort at modernization is hamstrung by its own tightrope--purists will likely decry the abandoned original verse, while the lingering fidelities with no historical context can only puzzle receptive viewers.

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* “A Pound of Flesh,” Heliotrope Theatre, 660 N. Heliotrope Drive, Los Angeles. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m. Ends Nov. 1. $10. (310) 281-3887. Running time: 1 hour, 40 minutes.