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Shakespeare in hate >> Why do we still produce The Merchant of Venice? by JULIET WATERS
The Merchant of Venice is Shakespeare's romantic comedy about an Italian shipping magnate duped by a vengeful Jewish money lender into putting up "a pound of flesh" as collateral on a loan. There's little debate anymore about whether or not it's anti-Semitic. It is a racist play, from a racist time. When Shakespeare wrote it, according to Lasry's research, there were no Jews in Elizabethan England. The only money lenders were British. Mercantilism was just blossoming and it was a crime to lend money at a rate higher than 10 per cent. (Interestingly, Shakespeare's father, who was mayor of Stratford-Upon-Avon, was convicted twice of usury.) Historians argue that the figure of the Jew was regularly used in plays by Elizabethans to project their own guilt and fears about this issue. During the time The Merchant of Venice was written and produced there were nine productions that included a vampiric Jewish money lender. As their own guilt about emerging capitalism subsided, the portrayal of Shylock became more sympathetic, to the point where, in the late 19th century, it was produced as Shylock's tragedy instead of that of his nemesis, Antonio. Yet it remained easily open to racist interpretations. The Nazis mounted 55 productions of the play. Still, it continues to get produced, often by Jewish directors. It has been reset in 19th-century British society, and one production set the play in Auschwitz, with an SS officer forcing concentration camp Jews to play all the parts. The role of Shylock is considered a tremendous challenge and has been played by some of the great actors of the last few centuries, such as Edmund Keane, Orson Welles, Laurence Olivier and Dustin Hoffman. Shylock appears in only five scenes in The Merchant of Venice, yet as actor Ron Leibman points out, he's had an inestimable influence on the history of theatre. Even though the play remains, in Leibman's words, "a story about a bad Jew who wants to kill a good Christian." Theologian Karen Armstrong claims that The Merchant of Venice survives because no one in a comedy by Shakespeare is ever entirely good or entirely evil. Shylock is a sympathetic character because of his famous plea for understanding ("Hath not a Jew eyes, hath not a Jew hands..."). And Portia, the famous heroine disguised as a lawyer, remains an ambiguous character because, soon after her famous plea for compassion ("The quality of mercy is not strained..."), she reminds the court of a law that allows the city to strip Shylock of his wealth and identity and force him to embrace Christianity. Lasky ends his documentary with Armstrong's argument, which is, unfortunately one of the film's few weaknesses. Although Shylock is filled with wonderful, articulate interviews from actors, directors and historians, it lacks a point of view, and Armstrong's claim is one of the most debatable. Any decent piece of literature, whether it be a minor work or a masterpiece, creates characters who embody both flaws and virtues. Many would argue that The Merchant of Venice survives because it's Shakespeare. Not because he's the greatest writer in the English language, but because he's the best known, most studied and easily referred to. Continuously reproducing, re-interpreting and reprotesting his play is useful to the discourse on racism. Lasky's film is well worth seeing, but it could use a more interesting examination of why Shakespeare gets a special dispensation, and never entirely answers the question of why some racist texts survive while others don't. Shylock premieres Thurs., March 11, 8:30pm at the Goethe Institut. It will also be screened at the Jewish Film festival in May
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This week's books column isn't really about books. It's about Shylock, an NFB documentary by Pierre Lasry on the history of Shakespeare's anti-Semitic play, The Merchant of Venice. Shylock will be receiving its world premiere tonight (Thursday, March 11) at the Festival International du Film sur l'Art. As an NFB doc, it probably won't be getting many public screenings beyond that. But it's worth seeing because it's one of the more intriguing illustrations of how contemporary society deals with racist texts.