The Merchant of Venice in the court of the Duke of Venice. Shylock refuses Bassanio's offer of 6,000 ducats, twice the amount of the loan. He demands his pound of flesh from Antonio. The Duke, wishing to save Antonio but unable to nullify a contract, refers the case to a visitor. He identifies himself as Balthasar, a young male "doctor of the law", bearing a letter of recommendation to the Duke from the learned lawyer Bellario. The doctor is Portia in disguise, and the law clerk who accompanies her is Nerissa, also disguised as a man. As Balthasar, Portia repeatedly asks Shylock to show
The Maori Merchant of Venice in 2002, while Waihoroi Shortland won the film award for best actor at the New Zealand Film and TV Awards in 2003. "The Merchant of Venice" is not the only Shakespearian play to have been adapted to Māori themes, though it is the only one to have been released as a feature film. Adaptations of "Othello", using a Māori cast and usually set during either the Musket Wars or New Zealand Land Wars of the nineteenth century, have been performed on numerous occasions since the late 1990s, most notably at Christchurch's Court Theatre in 2001. The Maori Merchant of Venice