In Venice, the epicentre of consumption, speculation and debt, Bassanio borrows money from his friend Antonio to finance his wooing of a wealthy heiress. Antonio, in turn, takes out a loan from the moneylender Shylock. The loan will be repaid when Antonio’s ships return to the city. Read more …
But if the money cannot be repaid, Antonio will give to Shylock a pound of his own flesh. When the contract is broken, simmering racial tensions boil over. A wronged father, and despised outsider, Shylock looks to exact the ultimate price for a deal sealed in blood.
“If you prick us, do we not bleed? if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?”
A thrilling drama, The Merchant of Venice remains one of Shakespeare’s most popular and controversial plays where, in some of his most highly-charged scenes, he dramatises the competing claims of tolerance and intolerance, religious law and civil society, justice and mercy; while in the character of Shylock he created one of the most memorable outsiders in all theatre.
A memorably modern production of Shakespeare’s most politically challenging play.
The show has a fine, understated Shylock in Kirk Bage, though, and a magnificently complex Portia in Nicole Cooper.
Bard in the Botanics, Glasgow from Thursday July 16, 2015, until Saturday August 1, 2015. More info: http://www.bardinthebotanics.co.uk
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