Spanish reception of Molina Foix and Plaza’s 1992 version of The Merchant of Venice: a reassessment

The present paper reassesses the Spanish reception of Vicente Molina Foix’s and José Carlos Plaza’s Spanish version of Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, premiered at the María Guerrero Theatre (Madrid) in 1992. Taking into account the interdependence between text and performance, it pays attention to the strategies adopted by Molina Foix in his translation of this complex Shakespearean tragicomedy. Bearing in mind that the text is a score for the actors to perform, it assesses to what extent the performance of their parts is as nuanced as the score may suggest. It then compares that analysis with the statements published by the text’s translator, the stage director and a number of newspaper reviewers and scholars on the nature of the Spanish production. It concludes by showing to what extent a play’s paratext may mediate between a performance and its target audience.