Merchant of Venice: The Musical
Key plot elements, if you don’t know the show: Antonio, a Venetian merchant, borrows money from Shylock, who is Jewish. The money is to help Antonio’s friend, Bassanio, to woo Portia, a sort of wealthy heiress. Meanwhile, Shylock’s daughter, Jessica, yearns to escape her father and her Jewish identity by marrying Lorenzo, a Christian. When Antonio is unable to pay back the money, Shylock believes he finally has the chance to have the power of the law on his side. It’s an illusion. Shylock loses everything. My first thought, halfway through Act One was, I want to go out to the lobby at intermission and buy the soundtrack. The music grabbed me from the very first number and never let me go. This is not Phantom or Rent, though, where you can just do that. It’s a brand new show, and I saw its first public performance. But it had that quality. I wanted to be able to shove the CD into my car’s player and listen on the way home. It's a staged reading. At the same time there are props, c