A short while ago Rupert Goold transplanted Prospero’s isle to an Arctic ice floe.
A short while ago Rupert Goold transplanted Prospero’s isle to an Arctic ice floe. His latest hazard as theatrical travel agent is to whisk Antonio and Shylock off to Las Vegas. The hurly-burly of a modern casino turns out to be a buzzy metaphor for the high stakes for which everyone’s playing in The Merchant of Venice. There actually is a super-casino in Venice — bizarrely located in the very palazzo on the Grand Canal where Wagner died — but it’s much more fun for Goold to relocate to the US. This also allows Portia to star as hostess of a television game show called Destiny in which she herself is the delectably cute Barbie-doll prize (a superlative Stratford debut for Susannah Fielding, as no less for Emily Plumtree’s Nerissa).
Overlooking the odd reference to the Rialto, it’s amazing how well this works with Shakespeare’s text.
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