ABSTRACT
Portia’s mood switches from one extreme to another as she takes comfort from Nerissa’s reassurances about her father’s lottery — ‘holy men at their death have good inspirations,’ and accepts the suggestion that they run through the list of suitors. She has no idea of her own attractiveness, her own appeal. At Belmont she lives in a woman’s world, and John accentuated the idea by casting Balthazar, one of her manservants, as a woman — we called her Betty Balthazar. The precedence given to the riches made such an impression that Jonathan decided that Bassanio in his first scene with Portia should concentrate on making the right choice of casket rather than on wooing the lady. The staging of the scene’s first movement altered from day to day, and was not satisfactorily resolved until we took the play to London. But the staging of Bassanio’s choice and of Portia’s response was decided early in rehearsal.
