The Merchant of Venice and Othello are the two Shakespeare plays which
serve as touchstones for contemporary understandings and responses to
notions of 'the stranger' and 'the other'. This groundbreaking
collection explores the dissemination of the two plays through Europe in
the first two decades of the 21st-century, tracing how productions and
interpretations have reflected the changing conditions and attitudes
locally and nationally.
Packed with case studies of productions of each play in different
countries, the volume opens vistas on the continent's turbulent history
marked by the instability of allegiances and boundaries, and shifting
senses of identity in a context of war, decolonization and migration.
Chapters examine productions in Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania,
Serbia, Italy, France, Portugal and Germany to shed light on wide-scale
European developments for the first time in English.
In a final section, performance insights are offered by interviews with
three directors: Karin Coonrod on directing The Merchant in Venice at
the Venetian Ghetto in 2016*,* Plamen Markov on his 2020 Othello for
the Varna Theatre (Bulgaria) and Arnaud Churin, whose Othello toured
France in 2019*.*
In drawing attention to the ways in which historical circumstances and
collective memory shape and refashion performance, Shakespeare's Others
in 21st-century European Performance offers a rich review of European
theatrical engagements with Otherness in the productions of these two
plays.
