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The Merchant in Venice: Shakespeare in the Ghetto

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Abstract

This book records the landmark performance of The Merchant of Venice in the Venetian Ghetto in 2016, the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death and the 500th anniversary of the Jewish quarter that gave the world the word ‘ghetto’. Practitioners and critics discuss how this multi-ethnic production and its radical choice to cast five actors as Shylock provided the opportunity to respond creatively to Europe’s legacy of antisemitism, racism and difference. They observe how the place and play stand as ambivalent documents of civilization: instruments of intolerance but also sites of cultural exchange.

Keywords Costume design • History • Adaptation • Antisemitism • Children reading Shakespeare • Heritage • Performing Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb • Narrativization • The quality of mercy • Foerster • Aestheticism • Portia • Humanities • Shakespeare’s trial scenes • Chromaticism • Lighting design • Otto Taubmann • Josef B • Adapting Shakespeare • Site-specific Shakespeare • Holocaust • Reynaldo Hahn • Children’s literature • Compagnia de’ Colombari • Mock Trial: Shylock v • Fiction • Lancelot Gobbo • Mock Appeal: Shylock v • Aldo Finzi • Music • Bassanio • Memory • Shylock • Laurence Olivier • The Merchant of Venice in the Ghetto • Jews • Actors on Shakespeare • Antonio • Ruth Bader Ginsburg • Karin Coonrod • Site-specific performance • George Braque and Shakespeare • Ghetto • Shakespeare’s comedies of love • Site specific performance • Theatre design • Venice • Adrian Beecham • Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco • Rehearsal • Opera • F • Murray Abraham • Lorenzo • Lewis Carroll • Site-specific design • Music design • Ciro Pinsuti • Mercy • Gratiano • The Merchant in the Ghetto • Translation • Directing Shakespeare • The Merchant of Venice • Designing Shakespeare • Jessica

Thema codes DSG • ATD • 5PX-GB-S • 1DST-IT-NVE

Permalink http://doi.org/10.30687/978-88-6969-503-2 | e-ISBN 978-88-6969-503-2 | ISBN (PRINT) 978-88-6969-504-9 | Numero pagine 238 | Dimensioni 16x23cm | Pubblicato 10 Giugno 2021 | Lingua en

Copyright © 2021 Shaul Bassi, Carol Chillington Rutter. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.