FOREIGN SHAKESPEARE Contemporary Performance

FOREIGN SHAKESPEARE Contemporary performance EDITED BY DENNIS KENNEDY UCAMBRIDGE ~ UNIVERSITY PRESS ..,- Published by the Press Syndicate of the U ni ve rsity of Cambridge The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge CB2 IRP 40 Wes t 2o th Street, New York, NY 100 1 I- 42 I I, USA 1o Stamfo rd Road , O aklcigh, Vi ctori a 3166, Australi a © Cambridge U ni ve rsity Press I99'.1 Chapter I4: " Wilson, Brook, Zadek: an intercultural encoun te r" © Pa trice Pavis First published 1993 Printed in Great Britain a t the U ni ve rsity Press, Cambridge A catalogue record for th is book is availab le fro m the British Library Library of Congress cataloguing in publication data For Ann Foreign Shakespeare: contempora ry performance I edited by Dennis K ennedy. again and always p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0 52 I 42025 3 I. Shakespeare, William, 1564- I 6 I 6 - Stage history - Foreign countries . 2. Shakespeare, William, I564- I6I6 - Stage history - I950- 3. English drama - Apprecia tion - Foreign countries. 4. Theater - history - 2o th century. I. Kenned y, Dennis. PR 29 71 .F .66F66 1993 792.9' 5 - dc2 0 92- 47235 CIP ISBN 0 52 I 42025 3 ?R2C\1\ fbb F. b h \193 .. CE T The Merchant of Venice in Israel 57 detestable, and even the town's kids chase him, abuse him and spit on him. CHAPTER 3 Antonio spits on him immedia tely after receiving the loan, and both lender a nd creditor are obviously enemies and Shylock has good reasons to wish Transformations of authenticity: for revenge. 3 The journalist admitted th at the 400-year-old Shakespearean text The Merchant of Venice in Israel "does indeed present Shylock as a bloodthirsty, heartless persecu Avraham Oz tor," but she did not aquit the director of his responsibility for scenes prone to " legitimize antisemitism." She took particular note of the trial scene; Shylock (played by Anthony Sher, whom she did not forget to identify as " a South African-bornJew") ecstatically donned Rarely has a dramatic piece haunted a whole nation for centuries as a Talit when about to cut his pound of flesh , and muttered the The Merchant of Venice has the J ews. Shylock has penetrated the H ebrew prayer, " Pour thy rage over the gentiles who know thee J ewish coll ective id entity so deeply th at no reader or spectator not! " Knowing the H ebrew words, the journalist could not calm her se nsitized to J ewishness can approach Shylock without some se nse of own rage. personal involvement. Discussing the play in a J ewish classroom But whereas the reporter's rage sounded genuine, the same pro often sounds like discussing the lot of an accused person awaiting his duction was "scholarly," attacked an Israeli academic, professing verdict in the nex t room. A few days after my own Hebrew version of "scientific objectivity." The writer, Eli Rozik, had attended what he the play was first produced on stage (1972 ), the Israeli Open call ed "an organized pilgrimage of the London Jewish community U niversity applied for the ri ghts to include so me passages in one of its ... to take part in some inexorably recurring ritual ... to look again newly written courses. That course, however, formed part of neither and again in the famous Shakespearean mirror and ask themselves the drama nor the literature program: it was inJ ewish history. More again and again how are they reflected in the eyes of their host often than any other dramatic character, Shylock has visited th e society."4 This anthropological observation did not stop at the political columns of the J ewish press. A hard-line prime minister audience: it was soon applied to Sher as well, who was identified as earned the name (by non-Jewish enemies) as a derogatory a ttribute; "a J ew, born to a family of east European origin," who happens to a Jewish guerilla fighter defended himself before a British court: "I be " by a happy coincidence ... also of South African origin,'' am not a Shylock; I am a freedom fi ghter! " 1 An Israeli reporter in showing solidarity with the sufferings of his newly adopted "com London compared the British press, urging pardon for John Dam patriots" (ironic inverted commas in text). Sher saw the production ianiuk (se ntenced to death by an Israeli court for atrocities against as an attack against apartheid, its silent accomplices (his ownJ ewish J ews in a Nazi conce ntration camp), to the Duke of Venice asking parents), and J ewish hypocrisy in general. " The former victims of Shylock to show gentle mercy for Antonio (4· 1. 1 7- 34). 2 The report racism turned racists themselves at their earliest opportunity," Sher er's title was " Legitima ti on for Antisemitism 1988,'' and her main was quoted as saying, while Rozik reached his own conclusion: concern was the production of The Merchant of Venice by the Royal "Surely the typical English reader was delighted to read these Shakespeare Company, whi ch she had attended that same week: words." H aving stereotyped the entire " host society" in phrases such as " the open consensus of the English society regarding From the very outset of the play, under Bill Alexander's direction, it racism," he noted that " the comparison with the Pales tinians is not becomes clear that con te nding Judaism and Christianity are not perceived mi ssing." on eq ual terms. On the stage background one sees a ye ll ow star-of-David, But Rozik's main argument had to do with the legitimacy of painted in coarse lines with dripping colour, beside a neat church window with stained glass depicting Christia n saints. T he Christians a re handsome theatrical interpretation. The director's " line of interpretation" a nd clean, while Shylock is clad like a n ori ental J ew in dirty coloured attempted to present Shylock as the victim of Christian racism, but robes, his hair and beard curled , hi s speech and accent grotesque and this " is possible only if one abides by certain rules,"5 which Rozik 56 AVRAHAM OZ The Merchant of Venice in Israel 59 undertook to prescribe. Distinguishing between the presentation of Shylock intended to be" still matters to producers and audiences " the play as it is" (an essentialist position taken for granted) and the alike. This worn-out question seems to have embarrassed so many director's deviations from it, he found the director guilty of " redis recent writers on The Merchant of Venice , that, if hardly able to escape tributing positivity and negativity between Christians and J ews, its implications and consequences, they turn their backs upon its mainly between Antonio and Shylock," and diverting the original blunt wording whenever it awaits them at some dangerous corner. demonic, motiveless malignity of Shylock into a psychological re Others, who courageously address themselves to the question, are action. The director chose, out of irrelevant historicist motivation, prone to blame Shakespeare for their own perplexities. Thus we are to present Shylock as " the oriental model" (namely, "a J ewish told by Francis Fergusson that " perhaps Shylock turned out to be merchant of Turkish origin"). This anthropological model, Rozik more powerful than Shakespeare intended, for at that moment in his argued, is alienated not only from the Christian society on stage but caree r he was not quite in control of the great characters that were also from the audience: "undoubtedly, in my opinion, the natural taking possession of his imagination. " 8 What this assertion suggests tendency of the spectators is to identify with those who uphold the is that there exists a certain measurable model on which an ideal aesthetic and not with those who discard it. " Thus the "oriental Shylock should rest, and of which the product of Shakespeare is an model" chosen by the director will not do, since racism cannot yield unintentionally inflated replica. The desirable proportions of a to psychological argumentation. Rozik would have preferred the Shylock are dictated by the nature and properties of the play (in this 9 mythical antisemitic stereotype to the insulting suggestion that "any case, mainly by the play's generic classification); if the play as a historical Jew could act like Shylock." But there is still a surprising whole, say, passes for a romantic comedy, then the character of the ending to his story, which seems to him bigger than life: contrary to killjoy should spoil the fun only as far as the boundaries of romantic all his theories, the London J ewish spectators did not protest. "Con comedy will allow. Balance is all, as a good deal of the play's trary to anything we know about communication, we were witness theatrical and critical history would seem to suggest: when H eine ing a miracle. The anti-racist message was taken in . without wishes to grant Shylock full tragic weight, he finds it necessary to resistance!" It never occurred to the writer that his "rules" them attack fiercely every single member of Venetian society; and when selves contradicted "anything we know about communication"; M. C. Bradbrook describes him as a man reduced to a beast, she that perhaps even the "ori ental model" could raise some sympathy finds herself obliged to rehabilitate Bassanio from Heine's ferocious ' at Stratford. He opted for another explanation, one which involves attack. This insistence on balance may of course be challenged by conspiracy and magic at once: there is, he suggested, a silent agree arguing for an intuitive attempt on Shakespeare's part to echo the ment between audience and artists, both of whom "would experi imbalance characterizing the time in which the play was written, ence the anti-apartheid message to the point of neglecting [the rules foreshadowing the notes of melancholy evident in the denouements of] theatre itself.

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