The Merchant of Venice

An adaptation by Julia Pascal

What happens when someone who escaped the Warsaw Ghetto goes to the Venice Ghetto today and meets a group of performers about to play The Merchant of Venice? Has the text set the seeds for the antisemitism of modern times? A radical exploration of The Merchant of Venice opens up areas of the play which have never previously been staged.

Reviews

“Highly recommended”
BIG Q REVIEWS, The Merchant of Venice (The Shylock Play) 11/9/2007
http://quarmby.biz/reviews/Big%20Q%20Review%20Merch.htm 

http://quarmby.biz/reviews/Big%20Q%20Review%20Merch.htm
BIG Q REVIEWS, The Merchant of Venice (The Shylock Play) 11/9/2007

Production History

The Shylock Play is available from Bloomsbury

Arcola 2007
Directed by Julia Pascal
Designed by Sam Boardman-Jacobs
Movement Design by Thomas Kampe

Cast:

Paul Herzberg Shylock
Ruth Posner Sarah
Jodie Taibi/Emily Sidonie Jessica
Miranda Pleasence Portia

© 2026 Julia Pascal. This play is protected by copyright law. This piece may not be fed into any LLM or other AI software for any reason. By downloading this script, you agree not to upload it to Scribd or similar websites. No part of this script (or any other scripts found on the New Play Exchange, my website, or the internet) may be uploaded to and/or used to train artificial intelligence chatbots, systems, applications and the like.