Monday, January 30, 2012

Performance Review: The Merchant of Stratford

This weekend, my sister and I attended a children's performance of The Merchant of Venice - set at the PurpleTurtleYogurtLand in Stratford and Andelasia -- So cute! The performance, which included children coming up to play the roles of certain characters, was darling and made the play wonderfully accessible.

Venue
The theater in the round was interesting to me. I really with I had the experience of sitting on the floor as I mentioned in class because I wanted to be more in on the action and see the different characters faces at different times. I also thought it'd be fun to be in different characters' "boxes". I was in Shylock's corner and he never broke character. It was an unnerving corner to be in.

Casting

As for the casting of Shylock, I had imagined him being a shorter, smaller, weaker and bitter character. It was interesting to see such a large intimidating character instead. But what was even more interesting was that the character hunched the entire play. I thought it made him slightly more sympathetic, but his bigness made him hard to identify with because he seemed like such a bully.

The actor who played Bassanio was so earnest. It's hard to see Antonio/Antonia as the main protagonist because Bassanio really stole the lead with how easy he was to sympathize with (even with his blue hair).

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