A new production of The Merchant of Venice opens at Shakespeare’s Globe this month
(Picture: Helen Maybanks)“Some Shakespeare plays, where history has overtaken them, should just be buried.” That’s what actor Juliet Stevenson argued earlier this year, singling out The Merchant of Venice as especially problematic for its antisemitic tropes. But what if, instead of shelving them, we tackle them head on?
Many directors have risen to the challenge of grappling with the Bard’s more anachronistic plays, with fascinating results. In 2018, Josie Rourke’s production of Measure for Measure at the Donmar Warehouse staged it conventionally - then moved it to the present day after the interval, with the actors playing the Duke and Isabella swapping roles, commenting on our perceptions of female power. At the Globe in 2016, Caroline Byrne tackled the misogyny of The Taming of the Shrew by moving it to 1916 Ireland, against the backdrop of the Easter Rising and the battle for female independence. And last year, Ola Ince’s version of Romeo and Juliet directly tackled a deeply troubling matter often overlooked: that the play ends with a dual teenage suicide.
