“…a pound of flesh…nearest his heart…so says the bond…”

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The Merchant is a story Shakespeare couldn’t resist…an unfathomable sadness in a man’s heart…the mysterious terrors of the ocean…hate crime and religious intolerance…money, money, money and our willingness to gamble with our lives…things that still hurt and hinder us to this day in our struggle to know the difference between mercy and justice. 

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Some of Shakespeare’s most extraordinary characters - Portia, the brilliant young woman who dresses as a man to save a merchant’s life; Bassanio, the man with nothing who would have it all at any cost; Jessica, the girl who would trade her mother and father’s memories for a monkey; and at the centre of them all in the court of Venice stands a Jewish moneylender, Shylock, legally demanding a pound of flesh from a man who is willing to have his heart torn out of his body as a gesture of love to his friend…

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Performed live at Seymour Centre, Sydney in 2019 by BAM Studios