By William Shakespeare
Directed by Edward Hall
Irish Premiere
William Shakespeare would delight in the compelling, audaciuously cheeky theatre of Edward Hall and his award-winning company Propeller. Their adherence to a men - only policy onstage - a fact of the bard's day - along with Hall's mischievous, highly physical approach, sends up Shakespeare's intricate tangling between the sexes. Propeller's staging of The Merchant of Venice is a work that poses still-incendiary questions about truth, morality,and prejudice.
The story resolves around Shylock, a jewish moneylender caught between his faith's structures and the demands of christianity. In this astute production, Hall and company pull off a miracle, revealing Merchant's underlying absurdities - the virtue in vice and vice in virtue - while delivering as unsparing rendition of the harrowing bargain at its core.