The Merchant of Venice is viewed as Shakespeare’s difficult play because of its depiction of Shylock and its anti-Semitism.  I have seen a version where Antonio the Merchant and his friend Bassanio were portrayed as Hitler Youth in neo Nazi uniforms.  The Globe invited Jewish director Abigail Graham to direct this play in the Jacobean indoor theatre, the candlelit Sam Wanamaker Playhouse.

Adrian Schiller is quite the nicest, gentlest Shylock and his demanding his pound of flesh is not borne out when he has the knife in hand and Antonio’s bared chest in front of him.  In fact we feel, he is hesitating and might not have had the stomach for it, if Portia (Sophie Melville), in the guise of judge Balthazar, had not had her last minute idea that he might not shed any blood.  Modestly dressed with a black yarmulke and raincoat, Shylock is genuinely distressed at the loss of his daughter Jessica (Eleanor Wyld). 

On the other hand Antonio (Michael Gould)’s mob in Venetian Carnival masks and designer linen suits behave like entitled, rowdy, racist Hoorah Henrys, drunk and playing drinking games, where every time someone says the word Jew, he has to down a shot of spirits.