The Merchant of Venice

[selenak]

A friend lend me The Merchant of Venice on DVD - the most recent version of Al Pacino as Shylock and Jeremy Irons as Antonio. Which was interesting to watch, and, as all versions of the play, frustrating at the same time. Because it's impossible to stage or film. After the holocaust, but I wonder about the before as well, because the tradition of a

Comments

[pargoletta]

Popping in via wizefics.

I loved this review, particularly your notes about "the impossible gulf of history." That is a brilliant phrase, and I just might steal it to use in Real Life.

I also suspect that (here the "impossible gulf of history" raises its head again) our discomfort with the play's anti-Semitism and Radford's delicate staging of it has a lot to do with the way that the concept of anti-Semitism itself changed in the 19th century, from something based on religion to something based on race. A religiously biased anti-Semite can be appeased at the end by Shylock's conversion, forced though it is; a racist anti-Semite will still never really accept him even after conversion. I think Radford was definitely invoking the 19th-century racist version . . . but certainly, in the post-Holocaust era, that's the only one he could reasonably invoke and still maintain audience sympathy.

In the end, and as I stated in my own review, I think that Shakespeare's original Merchant of Venice, the romantic comedy with a funny, surprisingly

[selenak]

"Lost play": that's a good way of putting it, and I agree with your thesis.

A religiously biased anti-Semite can be appeased at the end by Shylock's conversion, forced though it is; a racist anti-Semite will still never really accept him even after conversion.

Also: for an Elizabethan audience convinced of Christianity as the true religion, Portia's and Antonio's action would indeed have been merciful, since they were saving Shylock's soul from hell despite his having intended to kill Antonio. For a modern audience, forcing a conversion is incredibly repulsive and makes a mockery of Portia's earlier words about mercy. But without cutting the conversion altogether, there is no way a modern production can avoid that. We can't see it as a mercy anymore, and we shouldn't.

[pargoletta]

Portia's and Antonio's action would indeed have been merciful

And contrasted with what the Christians would have perceived to be the cold legalism of the Jews, since they couldn't know the difference between tzedakah and khok -- both of which could translate to "justice," but with very different implications.

I do wonder how they felt about forced converts afterwards, though. Even though they "knew" they were "doing the right thing," it can't have escaped their notice that forced converts aren't very good converts; the Spanish wariness of their marranos might be a good indicator of their treatment of Nominally!Christian!Shylock.

[selenak]

I think that would depend on the era and the country in question. If we're talking about Elizabethan England, well, there is the real life example of poor Dr. Lopez, Elizabeth's physician who was almost certainly framed due to an intrigue by the Earl of Essex. When before his execution he proclaimed his innocence and swore by Christ, the people attending laughed and jeered because he was a (converted) Jew. Otoh, can't think of a comparable example in one of the Italian city states at the time right now, and there were certainly forced conversions, up until the early 19th century (where there was a case of a Jewish child not returned to his parents post-baptism by Christian kidnappers that made headlines

[pargoletta]

Dr. Lopez, Elizabeth's physician who was almost certainly framed due to an intrigue by the Earl of Essex.

From his name, he was probably Sephardic, and probably foreign-born as well, since the Jews were still banished from England at the time. I wonder how much of that jeering had to do with "he's still a faithless Jew under all the Christian trappings" and how much had to do with "he's still a faithless foreigner under all the English trappings." Either way, his name probably didn't help him any, in Protestant Elizabethan England.

(where there was a case of a Jewish child not returned to his parents post-baptism by Christian kidnappers that made headlines)

Edgardo Mortara, yes. And that sort of thing continued well into the 1940s, when Pope Pius XII issued orders for Catholics to keep Jewish children who had been entrusted to them during the Holocaust, some of them baptized. One of those children was Abe Foxman, who is the current head of the Anti-Defamation League, which probably explains a lot about Abe Foxman.

Felix