The Merchant of Venice    WS 22,108        SOL 16, 868                   76%            60 pages
Download and try these excerpts with your students.

So often, the Shylock story in The Merchant of Venice causes a fuss, and is deemed inappropriate for all ages. A Jew is wronged and plots revenge: what's wrong with that? Why don't people get upset at Portia ending up with such an immature husband? How will Antonio and Jessica live, and love, after play's end? This play is just packed with complexity and character, in addition to one Jew's need for revenge. I suggest teachers, students and even administrators, try to embrace it all. 

Cutting Gratiano was one of my favorite tasks with the series. He is a loudmouth bore in the play, and in the hands of the wrong actor can be an excruciating blight upon any production. His scope is judiciously curtailed in SOL. The 'Salads,' Solario and Solanio, have been fiddled with a bit for plot clarity. Quite a bit of Launcelot and Gobbo had to go: country incomprehensibility is only digestible in small doses. I don't remember touching a word of Shylock's: if I did I apologize. The general public prefers quicker endings than Shakespeare usually provides, so most characters in Act V have had their urges to extemporize and summarize slightly curtailed.  Purchase

I try not to be negative but Al Pacino's Shylock was appalling in this film, whereas almost everything else was truly fine. The film-cut of the play, is very close to the SOL version. Arragon and his retinue were memorable.