Merchant of Venice

[magid]

A couple of years ago, I decided I was done with this play. I'd seen it a number of times, and inevitably the courtroom scene would get to me. But ASP had it as the first show of the season, and I decided that perhaps I should see it one more time. I'm really glad I did: this was an impressive show, thoughtfully done, and the talkback session afterward highlighted the research and preparation the actors did for it.

First off, it's in a venue I haven't been to before, Midway Studios, in Fort Point. I'm not sure what the rest of the building is, though there's some gallery space, but it definitely started out as some sort of factory or storage, something like that, given the huge wooden beams that are still there, plus lots of brick. The stage was one level down, with a balcony over the stage used as a second acting space, connected to the stage area by a spiral staircase. The layout used the industrial columns holding the balcony up as part of the set. Other than this, and the stage being flat on the ground, it was a fairly conventional setup, with stepped rows of seating (for 199) in a big rectangle, and the sound/light people behind that on a platform off the back of the risers, accessible by a huge ladder.

The play... everyone knows the play. They didn't try to fool around with the play (I've seen it done with added mimed scenes in it, and have heard about versions without the conversion, etc.), but get into the words and let it breathe. Amazingly, I found that it wasn't upsetting in the same way during the courtroom scene. Yes, Shylock is not willing to be turned aside, but he has had great provocation, and, as with Othello, he cannot turn aside once he's determined in his course. Yes, it is his undoing in the end, a reminder that mercy, moderation, what-have-you is better, but his is not the only huge gamble in the show. This production emphasized how much everyone gambles, whether with Portia's caskets, or money, or law, or religion. It's all in play, and the stakes are high.

I hadn't noticed before how much emphasis is on the Portia side of the story (really, she's a great role). There's a lot more detail and backstory given about her, with all the details of her suitors, and the caskets, and so on. It's never made clear how Jessica got together with Lorenzo in the first place, for instance, and that's a critical piece of the story. Without her elopement, Shylock would have accepted payment instead of flesh. And the impression is that he had her stay at home and away from nonJews, so how did they meet enough to fall in love? It's unclear.

The talkback session afterward made it all come together. Jeremiah Kissel played Shylock, and when he spoke of the character, it was illuminating. In the first scene with Antonio, when the deal is first mentioned, he plays it with a motion towards Antonio's groin, and the line mentions a pound of flesh from wherever Shylock chooses. When Antonio agrees, he's the one sent to the notary to draw up the paper, and when that paper is read in the courtroom, it is a pound of flesh nearest the heart, a circumcision of the heart (which also is mentioned in Torah (or, I should say, given the context here, Old Testament)). Antonio started the play unhappy with his life, nothing to live for. This change is his doing. Kissel's take on it is the implication that if push comes to shove, Shylock will have the chance to circumcise Antonio, force him to be a Jew, which Antonio despises. This makes it more understandable at the end, when Shylock is pushed the other way; he gambled and lost (also, becoming rather like Antonio at the beginning of the play, with nothing to live for). I talked with Kissel afterward, and he sees him not as The Jew in Shakespeare (ie, Shakespeare was an anti-Semite), but another Shakespearean villain, one with depth.

I recognized many of the other actors (Marianna Bassham, Jason Bowen, Doug Lockwood, Sarah Newhouse, and Michael Forden Walker), and they were in top form as well. There's lots of humor in this comedy, and this time I was able to see it as a comedy. Yes, one that is partly stuck in its time, with that assumption that Xtians are better than Jews by so many of the characters, but there are many times that everyone's basic humanity is emphasized that it didn't stick in my craw. Or maybe it's just that the notes hit in this production worked better than any other I've seen. There was lots of humor, rather than dragging the whole down to deal with the uncomfortable parts, and it all worked together.

Side note: ASP has gotten a grant from the NEA, as part of the national initiative Shakespeare in American Communities. Cool beans.

Comments

[scholargipsy.livejournal.com]

I've taught Merchant literally over a dozen times, and always find it a compelling, deeply problematic, and rich source of inspiration, discussion, and puzzlement. In my opinion it works better in the high school classroom -- American or Japanese -- than any other Shakespeare comedy.

The question of how much Will could possibly have known about Jewish law, custom, etc., is a vexing one. After all, there is little he didn't know about a truly overwhelming range of subjects. But Judaism? Hard to say.

To be certain, Shylock starts as a direct rip of Marlowe's Barabbas from The Jew of Malta, a stock villain who delights openly in his own wickedness. But I quite like Harold Bloom's argument (in Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human) that Shylock starts out an off-the-rack villain in the Bard's mind, but that Shakespeare's creativity and imaginative faculty are simply too relentless and complex to allow him to remain that way. In a sense, Bloom says, Shylock breaks free of his creator, but not entirely; he is unquestionably villainous in intent from any Elizabethan Christian worldview, but hardly off-the-rack, and possessed of tremendous pathos and rhetorical force. I myself love the speech in Act IV, scene i wherein he likens his ownership of Antonio's flesh to the slave trade which was, at that time, a major source of revenue for Venice:

What judgment shall I dread, doing no wrong?
You have among you many a purchased slave,
Which, like your asses and your dogs and mules,
You use in abject and in slavish parts,
Because you bought them: shall I say to you,
Let them be free, marry them to your heirs?
Why sweat they under burdens? let their beds
Be made as soft as yours and let their palates
Be season'd with such viands? You will answer
"The slaves are ours": so do I answer you:
The pound of flesh, which I demand of him,
Is dearly bought; 'tis mine and I will have it.
If you deny me, fie upon your law!
There is no force in the decrees of Venice.
I stand for judgment: answer; shall I have it?

Wish I could have seen the production you did....

[magid.livejournal.com]

The Shakespeare plays I remember doing in high school included Julius Caesar (which meant we had to memorize "Friends, Romans, countrymen..."), Romeo and Juliet, and Midsummer Night's Dream, which I didn't really get as a comedy until we were taken somewhere on the North Shore to see a production (in the round!). I wonder now how I'd feel about the play if we'd covered it in high school.

It's unlikely Will knew a lot about Jewish customs, given how England was technically just about Jew-free at that point (though there were likely some crypto-Jews). On the other hand, the Old Testament was a lot more familiar to everyone, which gives at least some grounding in the basics; perhaps that was why there was so much about pork, since that was clearly a distinguishing feature?

That speech is excellent; I'd forgotten it was there (I remembered the "Has not a Jew eyes..."), and it rang so clear. I think having read Bury the Chains (Adam Hochschild, about the abolition movement in England; fascinating read) made that even more poignant.

There were some interesting quotes in the program from a variety of sources. The one that seems apropos here is by James Shapiro (whoever he may be):

The Merchant's capacity to illuminate a culture is invariably compromised when those staging it flinch from presenting the play in its complex entirety, which is what occurred when Nazi directors, in the fifty or so productions they staged between 1933 and 1945, omitted the intermarriage of Jessica and Lorenzo, and which also occurred when the British director Barry Kyle in a 1980 production in Israel was persuaded to omit Shylock's acceptance of conversion to Christianity, since it was so disturbing for Jewish audiences.

It would've been amazing to see this with you. It's unlikely they'll do Merchant again soon, but I've been extremely happy with the caliber of their shows... perhaps you'll be in Boston for one of their other shows this year.

[scholargipsy.livejournal.com]

James Shapiro teaches English at Columbia University, alongside (one time, at least) my great teacher and mentor Edward Tayler. He (Shapiro, though I could just as easily be referring to Tayler) is an outstanding Shakespeare scholar, and I am always grateful that I got to hear him lecture.

[thespisgeoff.livejournal.com]

I was about to post almost the same exact thing - Bloom's thoughts have always rung truest among the critical chatter about Shylock - but then you went ahead and did it for me.

So thank you.

Shylock's one of those roles that only seems one-note and offensive if you don't actually read the play; set on a scene-chewing depthless actor and you have a disaster, but any actor worth his salt (and with the experience to know that sometimes the easiest thing to do when ostracized is to become the monster people believe us) will make him a masterpiece of counterpoint.

Midway Studios

[magid.livejournal.com]

Just found this note in the program about the space:

The Fort Point Development Collaborative (FPDC), a joint venture between Fort Point cultural Coalition and Keen Development Corporation, develops permanent,affordable artist live/work space and cultural resources in Boston's Fort Point neighborhood, home to New England's largest arts community. The collaborative's first project, Midway Studios, transformed the three former factory buildings at 15 Channel Center Street into a thriving complex that hoses [sic] 89 live/work studios, a 200-seat black-box theater, a cafe, offices and retail spaces for non-profit arts organizations and arts-related businesses.