Publick Theatre summer passes

[magid]

This summer, the Publick Theatre is again offering discounted passes for their summer season.

What: The Merchant of Venice, Troilus and Cresida, and a student production of the former, in addition. These two have been chosen to point out the religious and social intolerance in Shakespeare's time, mirroring those issues today.

When: As last summer, the two plays are running throughout the summer, every other week. T and C starts July 8, and I assume Merchant starts the week after.
Performances are Wednesdays, Thursdays and Sundays at 7:30 PM and Fridays and Saturdays at 8PM.
Last year, some of us picnicked before one mid-week show, and that would be a pleasant thing to do again.

Where: Along the banks of the Charles. It's outdoor theater, so bug spray is often a good idea, though there are breezes off the water. Rain cancels a performance. If a performance is stopped for rain, you get to go another night instead. Oh, and parking is free.

How (much): This year's passes are $45. This is cheaper than buying individual tickets. Also, subscribers can choose whichever performance fits their calendar, and get premium seating (forward middle section; not only better for watching the play, but also the more comfortable seats, unless they've managed to upgrade more of the wooden bleachers.

Why: Shakespeare! (even if it is Merchant, one of my least favorites)

I want to send in the paperwork by the end of the month. Who's in?

Comments

[scholargipsy.livejournal.com]

(even if it is Merchant, one of my least favorites)

Why? Because of the overt anti-Semitism, or because of dramatic flaws inherent in the plot/characterization?

I'm curious because I've taught Merchant of Venice to freshmen for the past six years (I'm teaching it right now, in fact), and while it bothered me quite a bit at first, I am becoming increasingly convinced that both of the conventional viewpoints on the play are in fact dead wrong.

• Conventional Viewpoint #1: Shakespeare is a horrible anti-Semite like most Britons of his day,
  
  
• Conventional Viewpoint #2: Shakespeare creates Shylock as a noble, admirable, and fully humanized character, and is thus a defiant voice for tolerance in his time and ours.

In truth (or in sooth, as the eponymous Antonio would say), I think it's more complicated than that: Shakespeare seems to have set out to write a Jew-bashing crowd pleaser along the lines of Marlowe's The Jew of Malta and instead found himself compelled by the greater dramatic challenge of simultaneously pandering to an audience of bigots and subtly and subversively undercutting their assumptions throughout the text.

Shylock's "Hath not a Jew...?" speak is the most overt example, but the more I read the more I uncover tons of allusions, echoes, and phrasings that suggest a genuine critique of Portia, Antonio, Jessica, et al. Shakespeare doesn't like Shylock, I don't think; and the old man is clearly the villain of the piece in conventional dramatic terms. But I suspect he comes to like the hypocritical, venomous, and self-congratulatory Christian "heroes" of the play even less.

Anyway, I'm on board; I'd love to see a student production of Merchant especially.

Merchant

[magid.livejournal.com]

It's not the anti-Semitism per se. Rather, it's the absolutism that is more striking to me in this play than any other, which may or may not be a function of the Jewish aspects. The whole pound of flesh thing is implausible to me, for one thing. And for another, if it's going to be done in a legal way, it shouldn't just be overturned back on him like that; it goes too far.

I've seen a number of productions, and they've ranged enormously in interpretation (the one at Hillel, for instance, added a number of wordless scenes into the play, ones that I didn't think worked). Still, I don't like it nearly as much as Midsummer, or Macbeth, or any of a number of others.