The Merchant of Venice The playgoers of Shakespeare’s times, a successful drama was one that combined a variety of action, along with a mixture of verse and prose in the language used. This variety was achieved, and character and atmosphere was summarized. Modern playwrights tend to describe their characters in detail in the stage directions, leaving very little for the reader to discover. However, Shakespeare’s describing of a character is scarce. Usually, when reading Shakespeare’s work, the audience has to detect the personality of the character by the character’s action