ABSTRACT
Johannesburg in 1916 was feeling the vibrations of an extraordinary combination of symbolic conflicts. Lithuanian Jews who had fled to the Rand from persecution at home were ready to cheer the Russian Revolution. As Europe began to experience these seismic shifts, so Johannesburg sought to make itself, as a new city on the world scene, part of an international chorus of applause for Shakespeare. The Johannesburg Tercentenary had three main branches: the production of The Merchant of Venice at the Palladium Theatre, two Shakespeare concerts at the Town Hall, and a wider publicity campaign in the press, along with the distribution of Shakespeariana. The Palladium Theatre had been created in 1912 by converting the old Stock Exchange Building at 69–75 Commissioner Street. At the heart of the commercial centre of the city, this was Johannesburg's Rialto.
