No two plays by Shakespeare present bigger problems for a modern audience over their questionable content than The Merchant of Venice and The Taming of the Shrew. Conduct that seemed acceptable, even praiseworthy, in the playwright's time - Jew-baiting in the first, wife-beating in the second - is now utterly beyond the pale. How will it be viewed when presented on the stage? Whether by accident or design, the Royal Shakespeare Company is offering audiences the chance to find out in productions of both of these plays, by the same ensemble - largely Stratford debutants - as part of its new season. Merchant, already in performance at the Courtyard Theatre, will be joined by Shrew from Thursday. Both then continue until late September.

Merchant's director Tim Carroll - himself an RSC newcomer - obeys, as all must, the cardinal rule in any modern production of this play, which is to make Shylock a sympathetic figure. The venom-spitting, hook-nosed Jew of old, who might have stepped straight from the pages of Streicher's Der Stürmer, can no longer be tolerated. In a superb performance by Angus Wright), we instead meet a calm and deeply religious man whose voice is rarely, if ever, raised in anger. His insistence on his legal right to a pound of Antonio's flesh - callous as it is - seems entirely in character for a man of such unbending principles, one who has been obliged, moreover, to endure the abuses of his Christian persecutor for a long period.

This is not a production, however, in which the Christian characters are demonised. James Garnon's Antonio seems to be a decent cove (religious prejudice apart). His foolish generosity towards Bassanio (Jack Laskey), and his general gloominess, are not, for once, accounted for in his being mad about the boy - although the gay sub-text is not entirely ignored. Gratiano (John Paul Connolly) comes across as a bigoted buffoon, though one suspects the silliness might soon be knocked out of him by Amanda Hadingue's stern, no-nonsense Nerissa.

The racist overtones in Portia's relief at the failure of the Prince of Morocco (Arsher Ali) in his choice of casket ("Let all of his complexion choose me so") seems to be the only black mark - if I dare call it so - on the character of this paragon. But that's to forget the way the heiress (Georgina Rich) fixes it for Bassanio when he comes to choose, with her selection of an accompanying song whose every line rhymes with 'lead'. Following his success, the three transparent ice caskets are blasted into fragments - a shattering moment in a production that is otherwise as staid and traditional as the grey suits worn by so many of the characters.