THE MERCHANT OF VENICE at RSC Stratford

Rupert Goold reteams with Patrick Stewart for THE MERCHANT OF VENICE, featuring Howard Charles and Dan Percival, with sound designed by Gregory Clarke. Now playing through 4 October 2011 at the Royal Shakespeare Company, Stratford-Upon-Avon.

Guardian (4*):

This is a dazzling production that gathers strength as it goes along. It may seem a gimmick to have Launcelot Gobbo played ... as an Elvis impersonator, but it yields a handsome return when Portia's climactic breakdown is accompanied by the strains of Are You Lonesome Tonight ... [The] whole point of this daring and innovative production is that Shakespeare's play itself takes us into an imaginary dreamscape in which reality eventually intrudes ... Las Vegas seems a perfect metaphor for a world of financial and romantic fantasy.