Merchant of Venice, The

Merchant of Venice, The. Shakespeare's often‐controversial play was first done at Williamsburg, Virginia, in 1752 and marked the debut of the elder Lewis Hallam's company in America. The play held the stage actively all through the 19th century, although it was regularly performed in a truncated version, usually ending with the trial scene. Edwin Booth and other notable performers essayed the role of Shylock, many of them emphasizing the dark undercurrents in Shakespeare's story rather than the lighter elements of the play. There was also sharp disagreement on how to portray Shylock, with many performers seeing him simply as a stereotypical villain and Jew. Numerous critics and playgoers suggested the finest of all 19th‐century productions was that offered on their visits by Henry Irving and Ellen Terry. Irving's attempt at injecting sympathy into his portrayal of Shylock and Terry's richly warm and feminine reading of Portia redressed the balance to a large extent. In the 20th century a number of distinguished Jewish actors, including Jacob Adler, David Warfield, and Morris Carnovsky, essayed the role of Shylock in order to show that Shakespeare was drawing a human figure and not a caricatured Jewish villain, but the role of Portia was generally relegated to a secondary place. Other noteworthy New York Shylocks include George C. Scott, Dustin Hoffman, and Ron Leibman. Two modern plays that attempted to retell Shakespeare's tale were Arnold Wesker's The Merchant (1977) and A. R. Gurney's Overtime (1996); both were short‐lived.