"All That Glitters is Not Gold": Reflections on Javor Gardev's Production of William Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice" at The Bulgarian National Theatre
Journal: English Studies at NBU
Year: 2024

The article reviews Javor Gardev's recent production of Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice on the stage of the Bulgarian National Theatre in the context of the play's long debated generic ambiguity and the "unpleasant" issues it confronts. It argues that even though, due to good historical reasons, the issue of antisemitism has attracted most of the attention so far, the central "unpleasant" issue in the original text is patriarchalism and the inequality between men and women. The play and the