Antonio (The Merchant of Venice) person … lie[s] all unlocked to your occasions" ("MoV" 1.1.146), seem to allude to a sexual dimension in Antonio's love for Bassanio. However, there is also evidence that the two shared a strictly fraternal, familial bond, as indicated by the line "Bassanio, your most noble kinsman …" ("MoV" 1.1.60) Other scholars maintain that all attempts to read Shakespeare's characters as gay or straight in terms of the modern understanding of the word are culturally and historically flawed. Alan Bray's book "Homosexuality in Renaissance England" argues that in the time period of "The Merchant of Venice's" composition, "homosexuality" did not refer
Riverside Shakespeare Company in this country. In October 1983, the Riverside Shakespeare Company launched The Shakespeare Project, New York City's first major residency of actors from the Royal Shakespeare Company – with Edwin Richfield (of the RSC's highly acclaimed "The Greeks"), Heather Canning (of Paul Scofield's "Macbeth"), Christopher Ravenscroft (from the Royal Shakespeare Company's "Nicholas Nickleby", Jennie Stoller and John Kane (the later two from Peter Brook's landmark production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream") – conducting workshops and seminars and performing "The Merchant of Venice", Dylan Thomas' "Under Milk Wood", and the New York premiere of D. H. Lawrence's "The Tarnished Phoenix", with