Christopher Webber wrote:

>"The Merchant of Venice" is an excellent case in point.  Many theatrical
>practitioners feel (I would be one of them) that the play is unperformable
>nowadays without offending against either (a) aesthetic or (b) ethical
>integrity.  It is impossible to avoid nailing your colours to one of these
>twin masts.  You can't choose both.

I think I attended a performance where the director successfully walked
that tight rope recently here in Washington.  Shylock was shown as a social
outcast for being a Jew, his daughter a disillusioned bride upon realizing
that she had been induced into an elopement simply to fill her suitor's
coffers and to gratify his desire to further humiliate her father, all of
which was presented without losing sight of the horror of Shylock's planned
revenge.

But to keep this post musical, I must remind all that Shakespeare's
*Merchant* must be preserved as the source of the text for Ralph Vaughan
Williams' "Serenade to Music".

Walter Meyer