You'd think Shakespeare had titled the play

You'd think Shakespeare had titled the play "The Moneylender of Venice." Although he appears in only five scenes, the character of Shylock has dominated the performance and discussion of The Merchant of Venice for the past 200 years. Why? Because Shylock is a Jew in an anti-Semitic world, and because Shakespeare has made him an object of ridicule and scorn who nevertheless is a candidate for compassion.

For director Andrei Serban, this makes The Merchant of Venice, along with The Taming of the Shrew and Othello, one of Shakespeare's three "problem plays." Although scholars might reserve that designation for Troilus and Cressida or All's Well That Ends Well, Serban looks at this trio as a director and sees in each a central character -- a Jew, a woman, and a black -- whose depiction does not square with contemporary social values. The "problem" is how to render these plays on their own terms without offending prevailing sensibilities. This is a challenge that Serban savors, as his rock-'em sock-'em production of The Taming of the Shrew made clear to all who saw it at the American Repertory Theatre last season.

Serban is back at the ART for round two: his take on The Merchant of Venice begins previews tonight and runs in repertory through January 22. I spoke with him about Shylock and the rest of the play as he was preparing to lead the ART company into the final week of rehearsal.

Shylock functions as the villain of a comedy. He's a curmudgeonly father who keeps his daughter and his ducats locked up tight. He's a Christian-hating Jew who lends money for profit and demands a pound of flesh as collateral. But Shakespeare could not keep from giving Shylock enough humanity to make matters complicated. And the absolute evil of the Holocaust has made his portrayal all the more problematic. Some productions set out to transform Shylock into a heroic martyr to his faith; most feel the need to depict him with at least enough dignity to provide a rearguard defense against charges of racism. Serban claims to have taken a different approach. "I didn't start with a need to defend Shylock or to find an apology for Shakespeare being anti-Semitic," he says. "I started out thinking, `I'm going to see what is in the play.' "

What Serban found is a character who hides behind the stereotype others have of him and manipulates it for his own ends. "Not for a moment does Shylock let anybody know what is going on inside him," says Serban. "That is his technique for living in the world of the gentiles: he plays the image of what they want him to look like. In doing that, we have discovered he can be very funny, almost like a vaudevillean, especially because Will Lebow is a very subtle comic actor. I don't think there has ever been a Shylock like his. People might love it or hate it, but he is not imitating Laurence Olivier or anybody else, that's for sure. His performance is going to be completely original."

Serban points out that Shylock and the mean and mercantile world of Venice are only half the story; there's also the fairy-tale world of Belmont and the rich, young heiress Portia, who's bound by her dead father's wish that her husband be decided by a trial involving chests of gold, silver, and lead. "I think of Portia almost as the spirit of the play," Serban explains. "I feel like her father is Prospero's cousin or something. She is there to help everybody see the value of the more generous, compassionate side which is missing in Shylock because he must cover ...

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Previously

· The drive to protect marriage in the comic scheme · The unmarried?

Today

· The Other: the not-me, someone apart from me, upon whom is cast all qualities negative; The outsider/outcast, eg. Antonio, Shylock · Shylock looms large but is it a subplot that has overwhelmed the main plot of romance and marriage? · Does the Other take over the play?

Introduction

The Merchant of Venice is a play of binary oppositions:

· Venice – Belmont · masculinity – femininity · Jew – Christian: us vs them. Notice the number of foreigners in this play. There is a feeling of division, of us (Venetians) and them (the non-Venetians + Jews) in Venice and again in Belmont. Interesting to note that when Portia does marry, it is to a fellow Italian, from Venice which seems geographically close to Belmont.

à Sense of divisions amongst the characters; definable groups.

à There are moments when MoV feels a little schizophrenic. There is the romance plot and then there is the very different Shylock subplot which competes fo attention.

Brief stage history of Shylock

· 1596-7. Performed before James I in 1605 · George Granville, The Jew of Venice (1701): A rewritten version that focuses on love and friendship and where Shylock becomes a purely comic villian. · 1741: Charles Macklin returned to Shx’s original text and began to play Shylock as tempestuous and deeply wronged. · 1814: Edmund Kean plays Shylock as a tragic figure, one who has been more sinned against than sinner. · Contemporary sensitivity to anti-semitism has brought Shylock even more to the foreground. Reading under the shadow of the Holocaust, the treatment of Shylock becomes problematic, perhaps even apalling!

Implications

· We find a growing interest in Shylock as a tragic figure. Should the Merchant of Venice be considered a tragedy instead? Are the Venetians racist? Is their happiness achieved at the expense of Shylock? · The play consistently works to remove elements other than Christianity and heterosexuality out of the picture.

The Jewish situation

· Jews in Venice: marginalised, special clothing, special area for them to live, barred from certain professions, discrimination. [Note: Venice was also, to be fair, quite tolerant. Cf Othello] · Christopher Marlowe’s Jew of Malta – Barabas

è Jews as the ‘Other’. Seen as different, positioned as different, made as scapegoat. Discrimination was very real.

Representations

· Was Shakespeare anti-semitic? · How does Shakespeare depict his Jewish characters? - Tubal: caricature - Jessica: Christian convert or traitor? - Shylock: Victim or monster or human?

Shylock: His first appearance (1.3)

· shrewd, business-oriented, cf. ‘good’ 1.3.13-15 · business philosophy unlike the Christians’, cf 1.3.29-34, 128-29 · Deviousness: plays the Christian Venetians’ game by confusing business and friendship. · Shylock’s hatred for Antonio, cf 1.3.36-47, 101-124

è Stereotypical Jewish businessman, cunning, devious ‘A goodly apple rotten at the heart’ 1.3.96-7

A note on usury

· Usury = interest. · Antonio objects not to Shylock’s excessive charging of interest but his practice of charging interest from the moment the loan is made. · Charging interest after the repayment date has passed is acceptable.

Shylock: his private face

· As a father, cf. 2.5 overly-protective, affectionate · as a husband, cf. 3.1 ‘it was my turquoise, I had it off Leah when I was a bachelor: I would not have given it for a wilderness of monkeys.’

è Rather more human aspect of Shylock – a man for whom relationships do matter.

· But his relationships are also dreadfully confused with his possessions. 2.8.12-22 – daughters and ducats, 3.173-120 bemoaning the loss of his ducats as spent by his daughter. Mix of caricature and something more realistic.

Shylock: the famous speech, 3.1.47-67

· Catalogues a list of reflexes, basic human functions · Not a plea for pity or tolerance. · Arguing for equality, and in particular, the equal right to seek vengeance.

à Shylock as vengeful

Shylock: the trial scene

· A triumphant Shylock, confident in the law · In control, no longer the victim but the victor, · Yet as an outsider… · His status as an outsider is reinforced. · Shylock broken by the end of the trial scene · The play shifts to deal with Antonio’s hold on Bassanio instead.

Overall impressions

· Complex character · some redeeming aspects · some justifiable reasons for his monstrous behaviour · undoubtedly punished within the scheme of the play. This is a comedy and the ‘bad guys’ who threaten comic harmony must be defeated.

Audience reactions

‘[Actor Anthony] Sher found the audience reaction to the production a high-risk option, especially in the reversal of the trial scene, which still provoked ‘a roar of delighted applause.’ (Nigel Wood, 22)

· Are we (the audience) the racist ones? Do the conventions of the comic genre demand a racist response in order for the play to work as a comedy?

Why the last act?

· Act 5 is about the affirmation of comic harmony. · Witness the romantic opening of the 5.1: lovers under the moon, the gentle teasing between Lorenzo and Jessica, the music. · Witness the sudden good fortune of Antonio, his ships returned laden with goods and wealth. And the good fortune for Lorenzo and Jessica. · Act 5 is also about the final consolidation of marriage. · Threat 1: Shylock · Threat 2: Bassanio’s emotional debt to Antonio. Hence the ring episode... · But is the comic closure of Act 5 completely convincing? - Lorenzo and Jessica tease each other with stories of failed love, separated lovers. - ‘I am never merry when I hear sweet music’: an air of melancholy - Portia: ll 89-109 again melancholy. Recognition of a ‘naughty world’ and of relativity and mutability. à Again, a sense that things may change, perhaps a certain sadness at her husband’s betrayal? - What about Antonio? Unmarried, his hold over Bassanio broken? What about Jessica who is silent at the end of Act 5? Will she be accepted or marginalised?

Conclusions

· The Other [as Shylock] threatens and is removed but is there a return of alienation? · Is Merchant of Venice a comedy?

The Merchant of Venice is often called a "problem play," and its chief problem is the character Shylock. As a Jew in Gentile Venice, he has been mocked, cheated, and spat upon—and for a crowning insult his daughter Jessica has stolen a chest of his money and jewels and run off with a Christian. So he deserves sympathy—but he's not a sympathetic character. The trial in Act IV, Scene 1 shows him at his worst. Here's the background: Antonio, the merchant, has borrowed 3000 ducats from Shylock to give to his friend Bassanio, so that Bassanio can court the wealthy and beautiful Portia in style. But Antonio can't pay his debt to Shylock, who brings him to court to collect the pound of flesh that the merchant agreed to forfeit. Bassanio and his friends plead with Shylock to give up his bond in return for a double repayment of the debt, but he refuses. Since the law is the law, it looks hopeless for Antonio until a "learned law student" (Portia, in disguise) arrives and finds a loophole. From this scene, how would you describe the character of Shylock? Antonio? Bassanio? Portia? Gratiano? Shylock's fate at the end is disturbing to many. Do you think it's justice, or mercy? Why or why not?

Usury is the lending of money at interest. In The Merchant of Venice, Shylock's status as a usurer is never in doubt because his first line in the play defines him as such. Shylock is first seen pondering the amount of a loan: "Three thousand ducats, well" (I,ii,1)Shylock's rival, Antonio, hates Shylock because of Shylock's Judaism and for his business practice which depends upon usury. Shylock notes these aspects of the enmity of Antonio for him:

"He hates our sacred nation, and he rails

Even there where merchants do most congregate

On me, my bargains, and my well won thrift,

Which he calls interest" (I,iii,48-51)

For his part, Antonio both verbally and physically abuses Shylock:

"Signior Antonio, many time and oft

In the Rialto you have rated me

About the monies and my usances.

Still I have borne it with a patient shrug

(For suff'rance is the badge of our tribe).

You call me a mis-believer, cut-throat dog,

And spet on my Jewish gaberdine . . .

You that did void your rheum upon my beard,

And foot me as you would spurn a stranger cur

Over your threshold" (I,iii,106-119)

It is important to note here that Antonio does not deny Shylock's version of events. Antonio freely owns the abuse he has heaped upon Shylock and responds to Shylock's complaints with threats of renewed violence. Antonio swears that:

"I am as like to call thee so again, / To spet on thee, to spurn thee too" (I,iii,130-31)

Antonio acknowledges the animosity between himself and Shylock, but reverses the tables and argues that Shylock resents Antonio because Antonio also lends money, but does so without charging any interest. Moreover, Antonio has saved many of Shylock debtors from defaulting on their loans and thus preventing Shylock from collecting his interest:

Shylock seeks my life; his reasons I well know:

I oft delivered from his forfeitures

Many that have at times made moan to me;

Therefore he hates me (III,ii,21-24)

Antonio consequently appears as a charitable Christian who lends money freely, in contrast to the miserly and extortionist Shylock, who preys upon the hardship of others in order to further increase his own material wealth. The Christian virtue of lending money without interest is positioned, by Antonio, at the basis of Shylock's hatred of Antonio. But what is significant about Antonio's argument is how it undermines the justice of Shylock's hatred; because Shylock hates Antonio for what is an essentially Christian virtue, Shylock attacks not only a good Christian man of good Christian virtue but also, by extension, Christianity in general. Shylock's hatred thus has no ground in the Christian social and religious context of the play, not to mention wider Elizabethan society.

The perception created by Antonio's argument is that Shylock hates someone for their following a Christian virtue, which implies that Shylock is against Christianity, and by extension, of the devil's party.

You'd think Shakespeare had titled the play

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