‘James Bulman’s 1991 investigation of The Merchant of Venice in performance was outstanding. Now Boika Sokolova and Kirilka Stavreva have added a whole new range of brilliant and exhilarating studies, from Max Reinhardt in 1906 to the Venetian Ghetto in 2016, from 1936 Palestine to post-war Germany, to 21st century stage and screen, adding up to a transformative exploration of this endlessly troubling play.’
—Peter Holland, University of Notre Dame

Boika Sokolova is Adjunct Associate Professor at the University of Notre Dame (USA) in England

Kirilka Stavreva is Professor of English at Cornell College, USA

PART I
I An Elizabethan Merchant: performance and context
II Henry Irving and the great tradition
III Wayward genius in the high temple of bardolotry: Theodore Komisarjevsky
IV Aesthetes in a rugger club: Jonathan Miller and Laurence Olivier
V The BBC Merchant: diminishing returns
VI Cultural stereotyping and audience response: Bill Alexander and Antony Sher
VII Shylock and the pressures of history

PART II
Segue The Merchant of Venice: pressures of war, ideology, and the crises of late capitalism
I Magical spectacles and nightmarish times: Max Reinhardt’s productions of The Merchant of Venice
II Peter Zadek’s challenges to the post-war German legacy of The Merchant of Venice
III A post-Holocaust balancing act: The Merchant of Venice directed by Trevor Nunn at the National Theatre, London (1999)
IV Desperate outsiders in a money-drunk world: The Merchant of Venice directed by Daniel Sullivan (2010) and Rupert Goold (2011)
V Crises of the new millennium: The Merchant of Venice directed by Robert Sturua (2000) and Edward Hall (2009)
VI The Merchant of Venice on film
VII The search for justice: The Merchant of Venice in Mandatory Palestine (1936) and the Venetian Ghetto (2016)

Appendix A Some significant twentieth- and twenty-first century productions of The Merchant of Venice
Appendix B Major actors and creative staff for productions discussed
Bibliography
Index