THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

14 Friday, March 13, 1981

Shakespeare's Shylock Characterization Gets Second Opinion

By VICTOR BIENSTOCK

Conditioned over the
years to knee-jerk reaction
to warnings of anti-
Semitism, I dutifully re-
sponded to the alerts issued
by one of our national de-

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fense agencies and turned Shylock who would have
in on the Public Broadcast- warmed the heart of Nazi
ing Services's showing of propagandist Julius
the new production of "The Streicher." (How memory
Merchant of Venice." It had fails man! The ugly, evil
been announced that this Streicher, a literal duplicate
production would seek to of the stage Shylock, was
recreate the play in its orig- Nazi overlord of Franconia
inal context, depicting and so foul and vulgar in his
Shylock as originally con- newspaper's incitement
ceived without any of the at- against the 'Jews that the
tempts of recent years to Nazi propagandists tried to
soften the picture and show keep him out of sight of the
him not as the usurious Jew foreign press.)
But Nazi Propaganda
and prototype of evil but as
the victim of his time and Minister Paul Josef Goeb-
bels, I suspect, would have
circumstance.
The warning I heeded reasoned that "The Mer-
charg. ed that PBS, which is chant of Venice" would not
publicly funded and asks for have had much propaganda
your dollars and mine, was value because nine out of 10
"awash in bad taste" by pro- TV viewers would have
viding a forum "for a turned the dial in the first
10 minutes. It takes an ef-
fort to attune one's ear to

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the language and cadence of
the Bard. Those most apt to
succumb to anti-Semitic
propaganda are not likely to
swell the audiences of
Shakespeare productions.
Dr. Morris U. Schap :
pes, editor of Jewish
Currents, who protested
against airing of the
production at a time
when the Anti-
Defamation League "has
just reported an ominous
upsurge of anti-Semitic
incidents in 1980
throughout the country,"
recalled in a letter to the
New York Times that
Orson Welles had re-
nounced a lifelong amibi-
tion to play Shylock and
had canceled a London
production in 1960 be-
cause of the swastika
epidemic that had just
swept Europe. •
He quoted Welles writing
at the time that "until all
the church walls are clean
— and safely clean, too — I
think Shylock with his
Jewish gabardine, his gol-
den ducats and his pound of
flesh, should be kept on the
bookshelves until a safer
epoch." PBS, Dr. Schap-
pes opines, should have
taken thessame position.
Many scholars, I surmise,
will concede that "The Mer-
chant of Venice" is not one
of Shakespeare's greatest
plays although it does con-
tain some of his most
memorable passages. In
Shylock, Shakespeare
adopted a contemporary
stereotype of the day (it is
doubtful if he ever know-
ingly met a Jew) and
endowed it with many char-
acter facets susceptible to
varied interpretation.
We don't know, really,
how Shakespeare meant to
portray Shylock or how the
character was presented
under his direction. His in-
tent is and probably always
will remain a subject of con-
troversy.
The production of "The
Merchant" at this time is
part of a grandiose proj-
ect -by the British Broad-
casting Corp. and the
Time-Life organization to
produce all of Shakes-
peare's plays in as close
to their original form as
possible. The entire
series will be carried on
the PBS system.
As with fairy tales and
other imaginative exer-
cises, the viewer of "The
Merchant" and some other
Shakespearean plays must
divest himself of certain
criteria and be prepared to
accept uncritically the im-
plausible, the improbable
and the illogical.
.In ,"The Merchant," for
example, we must accept it
that a blind man cannot
recognize his own son, that
a newly-wed husband
passionately enamoured of
his bride cannot recognize
her when she dons a - man's
garb. These were the tricks
of the theater in Shakes-
pear's age, accepted by the
audiences atthe Globe The-
ater, but they must, I sus-
pect, deprive the play of a
sense of reality for our con-

temporaries.
Shylock, depicting hate
and evil incarnate ; grinding
his fanglike teeth and
mouthing the most horrify-
ing threats of vengeance, is
scarcely more credible than
the devilish Captain Hook
in "Peter Pan" or the
Wicked Witch in "The
Wizard of Oz."
Shylock emerges in this
production as a tantaliz-
ingly contradictory char-
acter; he is the arch-villain,
the usurer who treasured
his ducats above every-
thing, a despicable char-
acter on whom scorn and
contumely were heaped.
Yet, withal, he was a proud
man, an intensely religious
man, a father who loved his
daughter, a man who be-
lieved in justice as the guid-
ing rule and who was rooted
in his "sober" home.
His downfall came not
because of his "Jewish"
love of gold but because
of his overwhelming de-
sire for revenge for the
insult and injury heaped
upon him by those who
had used him and abused
him, a revenge to be in-
flicted on the man who
had spat upon him and
villified him and bor-
rowed money from him.

must have left many of its
viewers with a feeling of
sympathy for Shylock, some
understanding of his sorrow
and, yes, even some admira-
tion for the way in which he
stood up for his beliefs.
On reflection, no princi-
pal character in "The Mer-
chant of Venice," Jew or
Christian, emerges un-
scathed and deserving of
admiration and respect.
A
Shakespearean
scholar, quoted in a
-e
ADL handbook
fo
teachers, suggests that
Shakespeare used the
stereotype of the Jewish
usurer to attack what he
felt was the growing
greed and acquisitive-
ness of his countrymen
and the new, spirit of
commercialism which he
thought was beginning to
subvert old Christian
values.
Jonathan Miller, the bril-
liant, young Jewish pro-
ducer of the new version of
"The Merchant," sees the
drama in terms of conflict
between the justice of the
Old Testament and the
mercy of the New Testa-
ment as exemplified in
Shylock's demand to the
court for justice and Portia's
plea for mercy. In another
sense, Miller also sees the
Were a usurious love of play as a conflict between
money his guiding principle the sobriety of the Jewish
as the drama makes out so home and Christian
many times, how could he frivolity.
Like the holy books of all
have refused to take double
and triple and even more in religions — like the Delphic
repayment of his loan • and oracle — in Shakespeare we
insist on the pound of flesh? can all read the meanings
It was not love of money — we want to find there. We
the supposedly Jewish can never know his time in-
characteristic — that movi- tent although I suspect it
vated Shylock, it was re- was to write an entertain-
ing and engrossing play
venge.
I came away from the TV that would please his patron
screen feeling that, if any- and the Globe audiences. In
thing, this production of his own words, "The Play's
"The Merchant of Venice" the thing."

Iraq-Holland Ties Restored

AMSTERDAM (JTA) —
Friendly relations have
been restored between Hol-
land and Iraq just a year
after the Iraqis severed
them to protest the holding
of a tripartite Israeli-
Egyptian-American meet-
ing in the Hague. The was
accomplished by Foreign
Minister Christoph van der
Klaauw who visited
Baghdad last week in his
capacity as chairman of the
Council of Ministers of the
European Economic Com-
munity (EEC).
The rift occurred Feb. 23,
1980 when the Iraqis
abruptly canceled a visit by
van der Klaauw who was on
his way to Schipol Airport to
emplane for Baghdad. The
Dutch government ex-
plained at the time that the
Hague meeting in no way
implied Dutch support for
the Camp David agree-
ments and that any parties
have the right to hold lawful
meetings in Holland. Iraq,
one of the most vociferous of
the Arab rejectionist states,
did not accept the explana-
tion.
Van der Klaauw repor-
tedly reiterated his ex-
planation in Baghdad.

The Iraq government an-
nounced that it considers
the matter closed and re-
newed its invitation to
the Dutch diplomat to
visit the country in his
capacity of Foreign
Minister.
But van der Klaauw's
schedule does not permit
him to make the trip before
the Dutch Parliamentary
elections on May 25, after
which it is not certain that
he still will be Foreign
Minister.

AJC Program
Aired by Cable

NEW YORK — "Jewish
Dimension," a weekly pub-
lic affairs television series
produced by the American
Jewish Committee since
1969, will now be available
in some two million house-
holds in northeastern states
that are wired for cable
television.
The weekly television
show has highlighted issues
of concern to both, the
Jewish and non-Jewish
communities. Recent shows
have included "Jews in
Sports," "Collecting
Judaica," and "Support Sys-
tems of the Aged."