The Merchant of Venice

It’s got to be done, really. A Venetian town, hosting a Renaissance Festival, and the play has to be….?! A couple of years ago we provided a brief report about our first experience of seeing the Merchant of Venice in Greek at the Fortezza. Well, that one was fun, but somewhat eccentric - as we recall there was less of Portia in the play than one might normally expect, there was an extra scene involving a clown that certainly doesn’t appear in the ‘Oxford Penguin Classic’ version of the script and Shylock was just bizarre (and not purely in a theatrical way). So it was with mixed feelings this year that we went up to see the performance given by the Δημοτικό Περιφερειακό Θέατρο Ρούμελης (theatre group based on mainland Greece). We needn’t have worried. WE LOVED THEM AND IT WAS GREAT!!!!

The production employed a mix of the contemporary and the historical and brought a fresh feel to this great story. Actors alternated between modern and classic dress, we enjoyed a variety of different styles of music and dance and there were a number of good sight gags. For example, one of my favourite moments was when Portia was practising her golf strokes using an umbrella while discussing the nature of her unsuitable suitors with Nerissa. And there were plenty more! For those of us who there who don’t speak Greek terribly well, the language barrier was not a barrier at all; more importantly perhaps, despite all the fun, the actors managed to bring across the very serious messages contained within this work. Five stars from this reviewer!