PORTLAND SHAKESPEARE PROJECT
Michael Mendelson – Artistic Director
Karen Rathje – Managing Director
The Merchant of Venice
by William Shakespeare
In a Modern Verse Translation
by Elise Thoron
July 10 to July 20, 2025
VENUE
Portland Playhouse
602 NE Prescott
Porland, Oregon 97211
Just like home: A ‘Merchant of Venice’ that feels like here and now
… is this Merchant a comedy, after all?
For me, the answer came at the end, which I won’t reveal. I’ll just say that after the usual pairings-off in Act V, we get an extra scene that is a small, beautiful and devastating moment with the power to shake our preconceptions about this complex play …
Read the Full Review Oregon Artwatch By Linda Ferguson
Photos by David Kinder
Cast
Shylock
Portia
Antonio
Lorenzo
Bassanio
Garciano, Arragon
Jessica
Morrocco, Duke of Venice
Tubal, Gobbe
Nerissa
Launcelot
Leonardo, Messenger, Serving Man
Balthazar, Salarino
Gavin Hoffman*
Annie Leonard
Emily Sahler
Dylan Hankins
Brave
Matt Sunderland
Olivia Mathews
Henry Noble*
Jon Lee
Elizabeth Jackson
Zeb Bodine
Maryellen Wood
Alannah Walker
*Member, Actors’ Equity Association,
the Union of Professional Actors and
Stage Managers in the United States.
Artistic and Production
Director
Production Manager
Production Assistant
Stage Manager
Set and Props Designer
Lighting Designer
Sound Designer
Costume Designer
Avital Shira
Thyra Hartshorn
Amelia Grissom
Hayley Lamsma
Alex Meyer
Thyra Hartshorn
Kyle Colgan
Anya Jones
Elise Thoron is a playwright, director, and translator who brings stories not widely heard to life on stage. Her plays have been produced in the United States, Europe, Japan, and Cuba.
Elise Thorton’s modern language translation of The Merchant of Venice has been published by the University of Chicago Press which says about it:
“Elise Thoron’s translation of Shakespeare’s searing The Merchant of Venice cuts straight to the heart of today’s fraught issues of social justice and systemic racism.
Thoron’s clear, compelling contemporary verse translation retains the power of the original iambic pentameter while allowing readers and audiences to fully comprehend and directly experience the brutal dilemmas of Shakespeare’s Venice, where prejudice and privilege reign unchallenged.
As the author of three acclaimed music-theater works on the Jewish experience and informed by her work directing cross-cultural projects in locations as different as Russia, Japan, Cuba, and New York City, Thoron brings to her Merchant an immediacy that speaks directly to the present reckoning with race in America.”
The University of Chicago Press website about Elise Thoron’s translation of The Merchant of Venice is here:
https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/M/bo122973416.html
Elise Thoron
You can read about everything she has done on her website with her biography here:
The Merchant of Venice is a comedy/tragedy set in Italy. It is centered around love, money, prejudice, and social injustice.
Shylock asks for a pound of flesh as part of a loan contract; Bassonio agrees to it, and Portia saves the day by disguising her identity and pretending to practice the law.
No one dies, although Shylock loses his money, his property, and his religion.
The Merchant of Venice is a comedy, but it forces us to consider antisemitism and racism then and now.