Drama: M of V / 22.4.2018

[Conchis]

But, honestly, do you write a play totally centred around Jews, with all maner of jeers / jokes / serious examinations of a culture that few in the audience - ahem...a LONDON audience - would know about? Surely not.

I mean, a commercial non-starter for a players group always keen to make money? If the audience don't 'get it', then word will get round about this weird play about...who? ....and they just don't cross London Bridge to pay to enter, do they?

John Grosss wrote a very interesting book, specifically about the character of Shylock.

We have no precise record of how the character was performed in early productions but there is some evidence to suggest it was performed for 'laughs' and that the actor wore all the semitic 'paraphernalia' - hooked (false) nose, ringlets, red beard, skull-cap, etc. For all we know, the 'Hath not a Jew eyes' scene may have been played for laughs, too, with the audience on the side of the 'Salads'. Not how we see it, or how it would be performed today, but there you are....


Yes - the Wesker play is called 'Shylock', not The Merchant. Thanks for the correction. :)

[DracoM]

John Gross was my tutor at London Univ in the primeval past.

[french frank]

Yes - the Wesker play is called 'Shylock', not The Merchant. Thanks for the correction. :)

Not intended as a correction (I didn't remember what it was called when I was looking up the R3 production) of which I think I have a minidisc recording! In fact, I think that might only be what the radio adaptation was called. Checking other references, the original play was indeed entitled The Merchant.

As far as The Merchant of Venice is concerned, it followed the highly popular Jew of Malta by a few years. On the face of it, Marlowe's Shylock leaves Shakespeare's standing as far as villainy is concerned. The MoV seems almost a model of verisimilitude.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

But, honestly, do you write a play totally centred around Jews, with all maner of jeers / jokes / serious examinations of a culture that few in the audience - ahem...a LONDON audience - would know about? Surely not.
I mean, a commercial non-starter for a players group always keen to make money? If the audience don't 'get it', then word will get round about this weird play about...who? ....and they just don't cross London Bridge to pay to enter, do they?

But how many of the audience were personally acquainted with "Moors"? Didn't stop WS writing Othello - the "reputation" and preconceptions of "foreigners" was enough to attract an audience (along with the prostitutes, opportunities for cutpurses, and the lack of alternative diversions) - and these were what WS worked with - and against.

[Conchis]

Not intended as a correction (I didn't remember what it was called when I was looking up the R3 production) of which I think I have a minidisc recording! In fact, I think that might only be what the radio adaptation was called. Checking other references, the original play was indeed entitled The Merchant.

As far as The Merchant of Venice is concerned, it followed the highly popular Jew of Malta by a few years. On the face of it, Marlowe's Shylock leaves Shakespeare's standing as far as villainy is concerned. The MoV seems almost a model of verisimilitude.

I can recall a good Jew Of Malta radio production from the mid-90s. Ian McDiarmid played Barabbas. I've never seen the play staged.

[jean]

I saw The Jew of Malta in tandem with The Merchant of Venice at Stratford in the early 1980s.

Antony Sher played Shylock. I thought at the time he was supposed to be playing Barabbas as well, but in the end he didn't - and I never saw any explanation of why he changed his mind (if indeed he did).

Looking it up, I found this.

Sher writes:

"If you're Jewish, you can't avoid being interested in Shylock: it's a terrific part in a very difficult play. Shakespeare writes him in three dimensions: the great "Hath not a Jew eyes" speech is a wonderful cry of pain from an oppressed man, but when he flips, and becomes unreasonable in the trial scene, the man who has been persecuted becomes the persecutor. That is a syndrome that has fascinated me all my life because of my South African upbringing.

The opening scene with Antonio, where Shylock has to be polite to this person who despises him and whom he despises, reminded me of growing up in apartheid South Africa, the way black people would have to hold in their true feelings when dealing with their white "masters". In rehearsal, we used apartheid as an example of violent prejudice. Although I had encountered mild antisemitism in my own life, I found it much stronger than anything I had experienced as a Jew.

Our production really emphasised the antisemitism of the Christians: they abused and spat at Shylock. I had an awful lot of other actors' saliva in my beard, and when it's your own beard you really want to shampoo it all off. So there was no question of the play itself being antisemitic – because you could see how badly this Jewish man was being treated. You saw him being pushed to a level of revenge that is understandable, even if it is ugly."

Ignore the silly title of the piece, and most of the comments - but there are a few interesting things to be found there. For example:

"Arnold Wesker...says of this play

‘The Jew in Shakespeare’s play is meant to embody what he wishes to despise. That he gives Shylock lines with which to defend and explain himself has more to do with his dramatic instinct for not making the opposition too black, which would lessen credibility and impact, than it has to do with a wish to be kind to a poor Jew.’

And

‘Here was a play which, despite the poetic genius of its author - or who know, because of it! – could emerge as nothing other than a confirmation of the Jew as bloodsucker.’
(Arnold Wesker, Penguin Plays Volume 4)

Interestingly it was Jonathan Miller’s production, with Laurence Olivier’s oi-yoi-yoi Shylock, that struck him with the play’s irredeemable anti-semitism."

I'm glad I never saw that.

[greenilex]

I think DracoM is right.

[jean]

But I thought you wanted us to laugh?

[french frank]

But I thought you wanted us to laugh?

gi used the word "comic" which does imply something funny. It's a 'comedy' and there are aspects of the final scene which raise a smile. But "They all get married and live happily ever after" is what makes it a comedy - not humour/satire/wit.

[jean]

But isn't it true that between the Edict of Expulsion (1290) - part of a Europe-wide series of anti-semitic policies that encouraged Jews to settle in Venice in the Middle Ages - and Cromwell's overturning of the Edict in 1657, practising Jews weren't a feature of Shakespeare's London? It's not "impossible" that Shakespeare met any, but I think it is unlikely...

But they would have known of Roderigo Lopez, wouldn't they?

I didn't mention him earlier as I wasn't sure they would have regarded him as a Jew since he was a converso, but Wiki says

A Portuguese converso or New Christian of Jewish ancestry, he is the only royal doctor in English history to have been executed, and may have inspired the character of Shylock in Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, which was written within four years of his death.

[jean]

gi used the word "comic" which does imply something funny. It's a 'comedy' and there are aspects of the final scene which raise a smile. But "They all get married and live happily ever after" is what makes it a comedy - not humour/satire/wit.

I was thinking specifically of gi's

Sorry, at risk of repeating myself the Merchant is meant to be a comic satire which lampoons every character evenhandedly and sets the contemporary London Rialto by the ears. All our problems come from taking the thing seriously...

But then, she agrees with DracoM, who seems to me to (rightly) take it very seriously indeed

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

But they would have known of Roderigo Lopez, wouldn't they?

"Known of" almost certainly, but DracoM said "come across", which I don't think is the same thing.

A Portuguese converso or New Christian of Jewish ancestry, he is the only royal doctor in English history to have been executed, and may have inspired the character of Shylock in Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, which was written within four years of his death.

In what way "inspired", I wonder: Shylock isn't (until after the play) a convert, wasn't a doctor. The stories that were associated with Lopez in London were closer to the stereotyped character of Marlowe's Barabas - the real person was lost in the stories that circulated. The Tudor audience were well acquainted with the stereotype, and may well have relished stories that made entertainment of these stereotypes; but that does not mean that they (or Shakespeare) knew or came across any actual practising Jews - or , for that matter, any Christian converts from Judaism.

[Conchis]

I saw The Jew of Malta in tandem with The Merchant of Venice at Stratford in the early 1980s.

Antony Sher played Shylock. I thought at the time he was supposed to be playing Barabbas as well, but in the end he didn't - and I never saw any explanation of why he changed his mind (if indeed he did).

Looking it up, I found this.

Sher writes:

"If you're Jewish, you can't avoid being interested in Shylock: it's a terrific part in a very difficult play. Shakespeare writes him in three dimensions: the great "Hath not a Jew eyes" speech is a wonderful cry of pain from an oppressed man, but when he flips, and becomes unreasonable in the trial scene, the man who has been persecuted becomes the persecutor. That is a syndrome that has fascinated me all my life because of my South African upbringing.

The opening scene with Antonio, where Shylock has to be polite to this person who despises him and whom he despises, reminded me of growing up in apartheid South Africa, the way black people would have to hold in their true feelings when dealing with their white "masters". In rehearsal, we used apartheid as an example of violent prejudice. Although I had encountered mild antisemitism in my own life, I found it much stronger than anything I had experienced as a Jew.

Our production really emphasised the antisemitism of the Christians: they abused and spat at Shylock. I had an awful lot of other actors' saliva in my beard, and when it's your own beard you really want to shampoo it all off. So there was no question of the play itself being antisemitic – because you could see how badly this Jewish man was being treated. You saw him being pushed to a level of revenge that is understandable, even if it is ugly."

Ignore the silly title of the piece, and most of the comments - but there are a few interesting things to be found there. For example:

"Arnold Wesker...says of this play

‘The Jew in Shakespeare’s play is meant to embody what he wishes to despise. That he gives Shylock lines with which to defend and explain himself has more to do with his dramatic instinct for not making the opposition too black, which would lessen credibility and impact, than it has to do with a wish to be kind to a poor Jew.’

And

‘Here was a play which, despite the poetic genius of its author - or who know, because of it! – could emerge as nothing other than a confirmation of the Jew as bloodsucker.’
(Arnold Wesker, Penguin Plays Volume 4)

Interestingly it was Jonathan Miller’s production, with Laurence Olivier’s oi-yoi-yoi Shylock, that struck him with the play’s irredeemable anti-semitism."

I'm glad I never saw that.

You must repair the omission at once:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hu4_hd2_sKo

Antony Sher occasionally has interesting things to say but he has never, in my view, given a good Shakespearean performance - I recall with a shudder his dreadful upstaging Fool in King Lear and his grandstanding Malvolio. I didn't see his Shylock but, from what I've read about it, I don't think I'd have enjoyed it.

I would imagine playing Shylock might have a similar effect on a Jewish actor as playing Othello can have on a black actor (perhaps significatnly, comparatively few Jewish actors have played Shylock).

I'm afraid I don't understand the Wesker comments you quote.

[jean]

(...comparatively few Jewish actors have played Shylock)...

I don't think that's true, though; Jewish actors seem to find him fascinating.

Even Maureen Lipman thought she might like to tackle him.

(I did find a clip of the Laurence Olivier, it seemed to me...dead. I'm not sure if I could bear to watch the whole thing.)

.

[Conchis]

I don't think that's true, though; Jewish actors seem to find him fascinating.

Even Maureen Lipman thought she might like to tackle him.

(I did find a clip of the Laurence Olivier, it seemed to me...dead. I'm not sure if I could bear to watch the whole thing.)


.

In Britain, the only one who springs to mind is David Suchet (who is a Christian convert, so only a Jew by birth). Plenty may find him fascinating but perhaps they wouldn't relish playing him? It's a VERY lonely role....


Olivier's Shylock is worth watching if only for the way he pronounces Bassanio's name. Not all of Olivier's colleagues were impressed, though. 'Shylock? Shy COCK!' sneered Robert Stephens.