Creation theater have a very good marketing department. This we know to be true for they appear to have found my biggest weakness POSTCARDS (I adore them I have shoeboxes full). Not only were the creation postcards REALLY PRETTY they were also very informative & alerted me to the fact that a new production of the Merchant of Venice would be taking place on top of the Said business school in Oxford.
Jam and I are big time fans of creation theater, not only do they put on most excellent productions but our second date was to go and see a production of theirs (awww, it was Faustus, there is a review of the equally great Hamlet here). Merchant was an outside production and we needed some nice weather. Amazingly such a week arrived and we found on olympic ceremony night we could get seats really near the front (the sports lovers loss is the art lovers gain :-). So we went, and by goodness what a night.
For a start the Said business has an ampitheatre on the top of it (who knew) and is very swish inside.
The creation set was as ingenious as it was bejoux
The casting was fantastic (my personal favourite being the creepier than your uncle Steve, Shylock) and the costumes and music and arrangements brought a real freshness to the whole performance (its so nice to see Shakespeare done well, this production was unafraid to be different yet didn’t trash the text at all, as I have seen some of the more avant guarde productions do).
The whole atmosphere with the sun going down and theatre goers pulling out their blankets was something very special indeed.
At the end of the performance the director came out, unfortunately because of the dreadful weather we’ve been having both creation and the open air Shakespeare at Wadham College have been suffering financially, which is such a shame.
If you love Shakespeare, or even if you think you hate him, go and see this play, it will charm you. More information on creation theatre and their up & coming productions can be found here http://www.creationtheatre.co.uk/
