PLAYWRIGHT | William Shakespeare
DIRECTOR | Jonathan Munby
COMPOSER | Jules Maxwell
DESIGNER | Mike Britton
STARRING | Jonathan Pryce & Rachel Pickup
In Venice, the epicentre of consumption, speculation and debt, Bassanio borrows money from his friend Antonio to finance his attempt to win the hand of Portia, 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. But if they should fail, and the money cannot be repaid, Antonio shall give to Shylock a pound of his own flesh. And they do fail. And Shylock will have his ‘bond’. Starring Jonathan Pryce as Shylock, one of the most memorable outsiders in all theatres, and Rachel Pickup as Portia, this new production of Shakespeare's play premiered at Shakespeare’s Globe in April 2015, dramatizes competing claims of tolerance and intolerance, religious law and civil society, justice and mercy.
SHAKESPEARE'S GLOBE
Shakespeare's Globe is a reconstruction of the Globe Theatre, an Elizabethan playhouse on the south bank of the River Thames that was originally built in 1599, destroyed by fire in 1613, rebuilt in 1614, and then demolished in 1644. The modern reconstruction is an academic approximation based on available evidence of the 1599 and 1614 buildings. It was founded by the actor and director Sam Wanamaker and built about 230 metres from the site of the original theatre. In 1997, it was opened to the public by HM Queen Elizabeth II with a production of Henry V. Shakespeare's Globe has become a unique international resource dedicated to the exploration of Shakespeare's work and the playhouse for which he wrote, through the connected means of performance and education.
