Shylock is My name

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Shakespeare’s well-known and great comedy, The Merchant of Venice, is having a busy life in New Jersey. And…yes, The Merchant of Venice is called a comedy.

The play just completed a run at The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey housed at Drew University in Madison. The company presents several plays, not all Shakespeare, between May and December. Most are performed in the Kirby Theatre, a gem hidden away deep on the Drew campus. In addition, there is a performance at The College of Saint Elizabeth’s outdoor amphitheater.

While the production is a fairly orthodox interpretation of the classic play, director Robert Cuccioli has updated the setting to early twentieth century Venice. Cuccioli commented that this is a play about “A money-obsessed, patriarchal, dysfunctional society where wealth bestows power; one in which women cannot determine their own fate, and one marked by religious and racial prejudice. Sound familiar? Shakespeare’s dark comedy could not be more resonant for our time. A play that offers no true villains or heroes, his Venice presents a culture as complex and troubling as our own, where the situations and questions posed ask us to examine the “quality of mercy” in myriad ways.”
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Coming to Peak Performances at Montclair State University from September 19 to October 1 is the American Premiere of Karin Coonrod’s The Merchant in Venice. The play has been called a ground breaking production when it was originally staged in the Venice Jewish Ghetto as part of the commemoration of the ghetto’s founding in 1516, just over 500 years ago. The performance features five performers of diverse race, ethnicity and gender in the role of Shylock. In the Venice production, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg even presided over a mock trial of Shylock.

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Coonrod, whom the New York Times called “prodigiously inventive” and “galvanic” was interviewed at Yale University where she is a lecturer in directing at the Yale School of Drama. In the interview, Coonrod talks about the origins of her Merchant and the challenges in adapting this iconic play. (http://news.yale.edu/2016/08/15/conversation-karin-coonrod-and-david-scott-kastan-merchant-venice-returning-its-roots )

This unique performance leads off a year of productions featuring women who are innovators in the performing arts.

shylock is my name

Shakespeare’s memorable Shylock is also the centerpiece of My Name is Shylock, the latest novel by Howard Jacobson, the Man Booker Award winning author. This modern re-imagining of the play is part of the Hogarth Shakespeare project where Shakespeare’s works are retold by bestselling contemporary novelists. Not only is Jacobson a renowned author but he is also somewhat of a Shakespeare scholar. Like many of Jacobson’s recent books, the Jewish theme is central to the book as is ribald humor and politics.

Shakespeare in the Lampert Library:

Goldberg, The Yid (Fiction)

Gollob, Shakespeare and Me: adventures with the Bard

Jacobson, Shylock is My name

Melnikoff, Plot and Players (Fiction)

Pressler, Shylock’s Daughter

Shapiro, Shakespeare and the Jews

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