Director and author of stage adaptation – Agnius Jankevičius

Scenographer and Costume – Laura Luišaitytė

Lighting Designer – Darius Malinauskas

Projection Designer – Rimas Sakalauskas

Stage Director’s Assistant – Tatyana Belonovskaya

Production Manager – Aleksandra Šalkinė

Translation into Russian Isai Mandelstam

The Merchant of Venice is among William Shakespeare’s most enduring works. Written around 1596, its themes are broad and timeless: human relationships, justice and mercy, social and religious tensions, the mysteries of loyalty, love, generosity, and nobility. Shakespeare’s characters and plot remain as relevant today as ever, offering fertile ground for new interpretations. Audiences will unavoidably find themselves reflecting on their own understanding of morality, law, and humanity.

This stage adaptation, The Merchantess of Venice, explores fragmentation. Director Agnius Jankevičius argues that today personal wholesomeness is no longer internal – we feel ‘sated’ only through connection, collision, or taking something from others. “In this interpretation,” says Jankevičius, “the goals and desires of both individual characters and their respective groups are marked by division – between elite and common folk, the powerful and the powerless, the more masculine and the less, the superstars and their followers. Everyone is on a journey: the Christians and political elite pursue a focus for their passion – an audience to receive their grand pronouncements. Others, the so-called anointed, look for someone to replace them, longing to escape to brighter lands. A father wanders in search of his son, simply to hand him his meal. The people, yearning for a better life, strike uneasy deals with their own conscience.”

In Shakespeare’s original, the central conflict revolves around a loan of 3,000 ducats. A Christian nobleman from Venice, having squandered his fortune, borrows the sum from Shylock – a wealthy yet scorned Jewish moneylender. The condition? If the loan is not repaid, Shylock may cut a pound of flesh from the debtor’s body. A strange bond, no doubt.

In Jankevičius’ reimagining, this conflict takes on new dimensions. A member of the political elite pays off a common man to borrow 3,000 votes – from the dead, no less. This transaction becomes a symbol of uneasy reconciliation between the elite and the people. Will flesh become the new currency? Will repentance offer a refuge for the soul? And indeed – in this version, the Venetian merchant is a woman. Cherchez la femme.

Like other Shakespeare’s plays, The Merchant of Venice has been frequently adapted around the world for stage and screen. In Lithuania, one of the best-known productions is Jonas Vaitkus’ 2003 staging at the Kaunas State Drama Theatre (featuring Liubomiras Laucevičius as Shylock and Gintaras Adomaitis as Antonio). Internationally, Michael Radford’s 2004 film adaptation, with Al Pacino as Shylock and Jeremy Irons as Antonio, remains widely acclaimed. The role of Shylock, long considered one of the most iconic in world theatre, has been portrayed by legendary actors such as Laurence Olivier, Dustin Hoffman, and others.

Agnius Jankevičius is a Lithuanian theatre director, actor, and educator – one of the leading voices among the country’s middle generation of theatre makers. Over the past two decades, he has staged numerous productions across Lithuania’s professional theatres, while also appearing on stage and screen. At Vilnius Old Theatre, Jankevičius has directed Toxic Love (2010), The Grönholm Method (2013), Ice (2015), The Idiot (2018), Martyr (2024), and Reform (2024). His work is marked by distorted character portrayals, heightened physical and vocal expression, a sharply critical political and social stance, and a strong desire to reflect the mindset of his generation. Jankevičius is drawn to characters on the margins – outsiders, misfits, those who don’t quite belong. 

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SHYLOCK

To bait fish withal; if it will feed nothing else, it will feed my revenge. He hath disgraced me and hindered me half a million, laughed at my losses, mocked at my gains, scorned my nation, thwarted my bargains, cooled my friends, heated mine enemies – and what’s his reason? I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by Christian example? Why, revenge! The villainy you teach me I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction.

Excerpt from The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare

We thank the Lithuanian Sign Language Interpretation Centre for their assistance.

Photo by Telman Ragimov.

Cast:

Aleksandr Agarkov, Viktoriia Aliukone-Mirošnikova, Nikolaj Antonov, Anžela Bizunovič, Andrius Darela, Vladimir Dorondov, Jevgenija Gladij, Edita Gončarova, Aleksandr Kanajev, Jevgenija Karpikova, Viačeslav Lukjanov, Aleksandra Metalnikova, Alisija Nesterova​, Larisa Popova, Telman Ragimov, Jelena Ragimova, Jevgenija Rusakova, Vladimir Serov, Artur Svorobovič, Jurij Ščiuckij, Maksim Tuchvatulin