The Merchant of Venice: Peter Hall Company, Phoenix Theatre, June 1989.

Dustin Hoffman, Shylock; Leigh Lawson, Antonio; Geraldine James, Portia; Abigail McKern, Nerissa; Allan Watkins, costumes; Peter Hall director; Chris Dyer, designer. "Chris Dyer's lovely Renaissance costumes and simple, pleasing set - a marble colonade whose rear walls dissolve into a prospect of shimmering blue when the action shifts to Belmont." Christopher Edwards, Spectator 10.6.89 Donald Cooper: photographer; courtesy of AHDS Performing Arts Designing Shakespeare Collection.

A good script achieves synchronicity of script and audience concerns, as was confirmed for me in 1989 when such a distinctive tension occurred in a New York performance of The Merchant of Venice, in which Dustin Hoffman played Shylock in an intuitive Method style for Peter Hall’s production, against the grain of more formal British acting by the rest of the cast, before a largely Jewish audience recruited for that performance by Sam Wanamaker in support of his rebuilding of the original Globe Theatre in Southwark. There was great tension and involvement in the action. It is not accidental that Shakespeare so often chooses challenging themes persisting in human consciousness, like race, religion, and gender. © HMR