Drama: M of V / 22.4.2018

[Conchis]

Anthony Sher, Warren Mitchell, David Suchet makes three, doesn't it? And there was Henry Goodman, too. If I cannot name more, it's because I don't know which actors are Jewish or not.

But considering the age of the play, that's still not a lot. When a Jewish actor plays the part, it tends to be 'news'.

Possibly more common (demographically) to have a 'Jewish' Shylock in America than over here but I don't have names/figures to hand.

What do people think of the scenes with the Princes of Aragon and Morrocco? Equally disturbing? Or just plain tedious?

[DracoM]

Tedious.

Always puzzled as to why they are there - to show that Portia is up for sale to a wealthy suitor? or to show wealthy suitors up for increasing their wealth? Both?

Either way, IMO few directors know how to play this - eg for laughs? Portia making behind-the-hands giggles / yawns with attendant servants, or.........? Or well, what?

[Conchis]

Tedious.

Always puzzled as to why they are there - to show that Portia is up for sale to a wealthy suitor? or to show wealthy suitors up for increasing their wealth? Both?

Either way, IMO few directors know how to play this - eg for laughs? Portia making behind-the-hands giggles / yawns with attendant servants, or.........? Or well, what?

Aragon can be comic gift for an actor. Ian Richardson played it in the 1960 production at Stratford (Peter O'Toole as Shylock) and was, so people tell me, hysterically funny. Charles Kay was also pretty good as an 'ancient' prince in the 1970 production.

Morrocco, though, is a whole other kettle of fish.....

I dislike the scenes because they signpost Bassanio's 'right choice' far too clearly, reducing any tension from his casket scene (he was pretty obviously going to win, anyway).

[DracoM]

Yup!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Tedious.
Always puzzled as to why they are there - to show that Portia is up for sale to a wealthy suitor? or to show wealthy suitors up for increasing their wealth? Both?
Either way, IMO few directors know how to play this - eg for laughs? Portia making behind-the-hands giggles / yawns with attendant servants, or.........? Or well, what?

Yes - and this is the root of my problem with Greenilex's position. Taken as a "for laughs" comedy, it just isn't at all funny: the suitors, and (even more so) the Gobbos are an embarrassment; whereas taking the text seriously leads to much more profound inward reflection and (as we see on this Thread) discussion. Whatever Shakespeare the writer's intentions, his text - to ise jean's earlier word - transcends farce.


(I have seen productions where the other two suitors were played by the actor playing Bassanio, very clearly as Bassanio in disguise, and with the connivance of Portia and Nerrissa. Whilst this smoothes out the "coincidence" of Bassanio discovering the real casket - and gives a context for the stereotypes - and provides a "balance" to Portia & Narrissa's own disguises, it not only shows Bassanio to be a dishonourable cheat, but also raises the question "What would he have done if he'd chosen the correct casket whilst in 'blackface'? Kept the make-up on for the rest of his life?")

[DracoM]

Yes, 'Comedy' is NOTHING like the 21st century definition as has been better explained upthread.

Very classical and very careful. Not stand-up, not Late Night Show, not commedia d'arte, not farce, not sitcom, but usually ironic, witty, and generally coming to a not painful ending, but making serious points about human behaviour on the way. MoV makes many serious points about human behaviour on the way, but the junction betwene the middle acts and Act 5 I have always found almost impossible to navigate.

Cf the opening of MND in which Egeus makes potentially appalling statements, but look how that play ends. Difference is that Shak takes a LOT of time working out relationships, Egeus is NOT the central issue though his intemperate, threatening outbursts lend energy to everything the lovers later do, yet the play has at its heart good and bungled magic, and genuine love, and has The Duke to act as a brake / judge.

In MoV, the 'judge' is surely part of the violence. Worrying? Or maybe we are meant to find Portia's glacial demolitionof Shylock instructive and worrying???

I'm sure Aristotle would be more graceful in elucidation.

[greenilex]

I guess WS was in a very different place emotionally, financially and otherwise when preparing MoV than with MND. And so was the London stage.

[greenilex]

And about the suitors...dare we detect an element of feminism?

Pounds of flesh take us back to popular legends about bodies in barrels. A woman too can be sold by the pound.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

And about the suitors...dare we detect an element of feminism?

In what way, greeni?

[Conchis]

Yes - and this is the root of my problem with Greenilex's position. Taken as a "for laughs" comedy, it just isn't at all funny: the suitors, and (even more so) the Gobbos are an embarrassment; whereas taking the text seriously leads to much more profound inward reflection and (as we see on this Thread) discussion. Whatever Shakespeare the writer's intentions, his text - to ise jean's earlier word - transcends farce.


(I have seen productions where the other two suitors were played by the actor playing Bassanio, very clearly as Bassanio in disguise, and with the connivance of Portia and Nerrissa. Whilst this smoothes out the "coincidence" of Bassanio discovering the real casket - and gives a context for the stereotypes - and provides a "balance" to Portia & Narrissa's own disguises, it not only shows Bassanio to be a dishonourable cheat, but also raises the question "What would he have done if he'd chosen the correct casket whilst in 'blackface'? Kept the make-up on for the rest of his life?")

When the Comedies are performed today, it's common for the director and actors to devise 'additional' visual gags/humour to compensate for the fact that Shakespeare's jokes just aren't funny. The Gobbos are by no means the least 'funny' Shakespearean clowns, though - that miserable distinction goes to Dogberry and Verges in the execrable Much Ado About Nothing.

[greenilex]

Sorry, I was being my usual terse and allusive self...I meant that the whole fairytale of the three caskets is juxtaposed with the learned and autonomous female lawyer in very telling fashion. Portia is no chattel to be bought and sold, any more than WS’ own daughter might be.

She was Judith, by the way, as my own daughter is.

[jean]

...Portia is no chattel to be bought and sold...

But in the matter of the caskets, she is powerless. Unless we're meant to assume that she has manuipulated the suitors' choice in some way.

This seems like one of those ancient devices, which has no place in an otherwise naturalistic dramatic tradition.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

But in the matter of the caskets, she is powerless. Unless we're meant to assume that she has manuipulated the suitors' choice in some way.

Yes - and by having to take the disguise of Balthazar (in other words, to "lower" her status to that of her own male servant) she is far from an "autonomous female lawyer", I would say.


(Not to mention the "pre-teen boy playing a woman pretendimng to be a young man" aspect of the original cast!)

[jean]

(Not much dignity in a squeaking Cleopatra! )

I was thinking about the right/wrong choice out of three, and Lear, and Paris, but I find that Freud got there before me.

[french frank]

But in the matter of the caskets, she is powerless.

Here we suspend disbelief. We're led to think that Portia's father devised a test which will only be passed by a man who is worthy of her. I think that is speciifically said, isn't it? You could think that this was to safeguard her rather than put her up as a lottery prize. So, surely, it's the flaws in the two characters which lead them to choose wrongly? And Bassanio's strength of character that leads him to the correct choice. As a dutiful daughter she would presumably act as dutiful daughters did - she would marry the man chosen for her. Anything else would be pure romance