Rachel Ditor, who is directing The Merchant of Venice for Bard on the Beach this summer, used to be terrorized by the play—it and The Diary of Anne Frank.

“I felt like those two books were too hot to touch,” Ditor recalls as she chats with the Straight backstage at Bard, where Merchant will run in rep in the new main-stage tent at Vanier Park. “It was like, in my 12-year-old self’s bedroom, they had a red glow of heat. They were too spooky, too real”—at least for a young Jewish girl growing up in St. Catharines, Ontario.

“My brother and I were pretty much the only Jewish kids in school,” Ditor remembers, and she dreaded the day that she would have to face The Merchant of Venice in Grade 11 English. “I thought that it was going to validate anti-Semitism, and lend it the authority of Shakespeare.”

The seeds of her fear had been planted at school, years earlier. “When I was in Grade 3, we had a substitute teacher,” she explains. “I don’t know what he was teaching, because I wasn’t paying attention until the part when he said, ”˜If a Nazi came into this room, he would know who was Jewish.’ And then the teacher started describing what the Nazi would do. I went home in tears and he wasn’t back the next day. But that feeling never quite left: that someone could walk in and say, ”˜You!’ ”

When she finally faced the dreaded Grade 11 reading, Ditor remembers feeling “very anxious”. But she also remembers thinking that The Merchant of Venice was a great play.

For those unfamiliar with the plot: a young lord named Bassanio approaches his friend Antonio, the merchant of the play’s title, for financial support. To provide it, Antonio takes a loan from Shylock and agrees to pay with a pound of his flesh if he defaults. When Antonio’s ships are wrecked at sea and he’s left without ready funds, Shylock demands his pound of flesh, but Portia, Bassanio’s betrothed, disguises herself as a lawyer. She not only defeats Shylock in court, but also strips him of his wealth and forces him to convert to Christianity.

Thanks to the new main-stage tent, which seats 742, up from the old tent’s 540, thousands more will be able to see this year’s season, which opens with As You Like It on the main stage tonight (June 9) and includes Richard III and Christopher Weddell’s adaptation of the three parts of Henry VI, which he is calling The War of the Roses. Also caught backstage, Bard’s artistic director Christopher Gaze says, “When you sell out year after year, there are a lot of people being left outside.” He says he’s particularly happy to be able to accommodate more high-school students, including some who might resemble the trembling 16-year-old Ditor.

As if to calm such a young person’s worries, Ditor answers without hesitation when asked if her grown-up self finds the script anti-Semitic: “No.”

Still, many would disagree. After all, the Nazis famously used the play as anti-Jewish propaganda, even broadcasting it shortly after Kristallnacht, the orgy of violence against Jews in 1938. On the Elizabethan stage, Jews were often presented as grotesque, hook-nosed, red-wigged caricatures. And the play was originally classed as a comedy, which would make Shylock’s humiliation a “happy ending”.

But Ditor holds her ground in the face of these arguments—and reveals gaping holes in other common assumptions about the script.

“Shakespeare’s not a prescriptive writer,” she begins. “He doesn’t tell you how to be or think. And really great writers tend to challenge the mainstream. Yes, The Jew of Malta [a blatantly racist play by Shakespeare’s contemporary Christopher Marlowe] was a huge, roaring hit, but if we allow that Shakespeare was a brilliant writer, is he going to imitate a successful play or is he going to write a play in his own way that speaks to it?”

Ditor doesn’t buy the structural argument either. “We’re told that Shylock has been spat on and kicked in the streets because he’s Jewish,” she counters. “His daughter Jessica converts and flees, and everything is taken from him at the end. I don’t think that’s built to say, ”˜If you’re Jewish, you get what you deserve.’ I think it’s built to make the audience question its assumptions about Jews. And Shylock’s got this beautiful speech: ”˜Hath not a Jew eyes?’ ”

Those who think that the play is racist argue that Shylock’s flaw is that he is incapable of mercy and that the play positions his Old Testament taste for justice against the Christian Portia’s capacity for compassion: “The quality of mercy is not strained.”

But, Ditor asks, can Shylock’s treatment in court be called compassionate? And how wise is Portia? “There is this idea that she is a paragon of virtuous mercy,” Ditor says, “but when I picture this paragon next to this old guy, who has been spat on and kicked, I see a young, privileged woman saying, ”˜You know what? Just be nice.’ ” Ditor describes Portia as “a happy, oblivious racist. Lovely disposition otherwise.”

And the director points out that the myth of Portia’s deep wisdom has been perpetuated through selective editing. “She says incredibly racist things,” Ditor emphasizes, “and many productions cut them out.” Before settling on Bassanio, Portia entertains several hopefuls. Ditor notes that “the suitor from Morocco is black, and she says twice that she won’t marry someone who’s black.” And Portia dismisses her other suitors with jokes about their supposed national characteristics.

Ditor understands why some will be spooked by The Merchant of Venice, as she once was; her mother has told her that some friends and family members won’t be attending. But Ditor insists that the play is complex and large-hearted. She encourages audiences to approach the text without fear of its supposedly anti-Semitic characteristics and without preconceptions about Portia’s supposed moral high ground.

The Merchant of Venice will run at the new main-stage tent in Vanier Park from June 18 until September 23.