Premiere US Premiere
Production Language English
Country of Origin England, United Kingdom
Description With its production of The Merchant of Venice in 2009, Propeller returned to BAM for the fourth time. But in contrast to previous productions, the all-male British Shakespeare troupe tackled a tragedy, not a comedy. Artistic Director Edward Hall set Merchant in a prison, a place, as Charles Isherwood described it in The New York Times, “where the men brawl and make sexual and mercenary deals.” The setting highlighted the darker themes of the text, putting “Shakespeare’s play on lockdown in a brutally violent men’s jail where rival gangs vie for supremacy.” In this steel-barred, caged setting, the racial tensions in the play, tensions that are often uncomfortable for modern audiences, fit naturally; Shylock was a hardened criminal, entirely unsympathetic; Portia and Nerissa were portrayed as male prisoners in crude and tawdry, torn-fishnet drag; and the Duke was the governor of the prison.
Identifier 2009s.00933
