Red Monkey Theater Group to Present
‘MERCHANT OF VENICE’
by William Shakespeare
Dobbs Ferry, NY – The Red Monkey Theater Group
will present ‘The Merchant of Venice’ by William Shakespeare, on Friday, January 15th and Saturday,
January 16th at 8:00pm at the South Presbyterian Church at 343 Broadway in Dobbs Ferry. Call (914) 693-1646 or visit www.redmonkeytheater.org for tickets.
RMTG is thrilled to present a tautly-paced one-hour
version of Shakespeare’s classic crisis of bonds and exclusion, religion and race, love and money. The Merchant
of Venice tells the story of Antonio, a man too good for money-making who has dedicated his life to making money, and
the deadly debt he owes to Jewish moneylender Shylock, a figure driven to desperation by disasters of family and finance.
"This is a story set in society filled with of
fascinating and luxurious distractions," says Red Monkey Theater Group Artistic Director Tal Aviezer. "By ignoring the bonds
of shared humanity in favor of the bonds of commerce, its characters find themselves in danger of losing all they hold dear;
their homes, their families, their lives and their faith. But it’s also a story wherein Shakespeare’s beautiful
language, most famously those beginning “Hath not a Jew eyes?” and “The quality of mercy is not strained”
articulates deep universal truths expressing the best and the worst elements of the human condition.
A special free preview
performance will be held at 1:30pm on Saturday, January 9th at St. Paul’s Church Historic Site in Mt. Vernon,
NY. For additional details, please visit www.redmonkeytheater.org.
This
production is supported by the Arts Alive program of ArtsWestchester (formerly the Westchester Arts Council), with funding
from the Decentralization Program of the New York State Council on the Arts.
Founded in 1999,
The Red Monkey Theatre Group (RMTG) is a non-profit performing arts company dedicated to enriching local communities through
the cultivation, creation and presentation of live theater. Company members have trained with the Royal Shakespeare Company,
the National Theater Institute at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center, the Moscow Arts Theater, Lincoln Center Theater and other
diverse institutions and programs. Recent productions include the company's original dramatic adaptation of Dostoevsky's The
Brothers Karamazov enjoyed a month-long run at The Mazer Theater on the Lower East Side of Manhattan,as well as the group's
production of Harold Pinter's The Dumb Waiter, which appeared as part
of the Westchester Arts Council's acclaimed Live @ the Arts Exchange performance series.
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