THE MERCHANT OF VENICE

Shakespeare’s perennially contested play about corrosive bigotry and blinding vengeance is poised at the radioactive intersection of race, class and religion in Arin Arbus’s production. As Ms. Arbus observes, “The Merchant of Venice depicts a divided society saturated with hate and inequity. The world boils with anti-Semitism, racism, xenophobia, misogyny, classism, and homophobia.” John Douglas Thompson stars as Shylock in his fifth classical collaboration with Arbus. The show’s uniquely diverse company evoke a deeply stratified Venice. Its connections to our own grievously fractured world are vivid, stark and startling.