lenging because of the various
approaches to the characters and issues.
"I know there's a lot of baggage that
goes along with the play," says Lewis,
whose other Shakespeare credits
include parts in Julius Caesar and
Hamlet. "I don't see my role as Jew
versus Christian. I see it as Shylock
versus Antonio.
"Shylock is kind of a raw nerve,
very sensitive and emotional. I think
that justice is not served in the play
because Shylock, as unsympathetic as
he may be, doesn't deserve to be
forced into conversion."
David Magidson, Wayne State
University professor of theater who
has served on the board of the Jewish
Ensemble Theatre, thinks of Shylock
as one of the most three-dimensional
characters introduced by Shakespeare
and explains The Merchant ofVenice as
the only Shakespeare play with a cen-
tral Jewish character. He believes that
if Shakespeare were truly anti-Semitic,
the playwright would have pursued
that theme through other projects.
"Shylock stands up four-square for
treating people equally and is very
progressive in that sense," Magidson
says. "What makes him disagreeable
and unlikable is that he insisted on
physical vengeance, but, in a sense, the
society of the times forced him into
that. He does what he thinks he has a
right to do, and the play becomes a
picture of how society can twist itself
and make the most trouble for itself"
Harold Bloom, Sterling Professor of
Humanities at Yale University, writes
about Shylock in his book Shakespeare:
The Invention of the Human.
"Shylock is no monster but an
overwhelming persuasion of a possi-
ble human being," Bloom writes.
"Shylock matters most not just in
the historical world of anti-Semitism,
but also in the inner world of
Shakespeare's development, because
no previous figure in the plays has
anything like Shylock's strength,
complexity and vital potential.
Shylock's pathos can be termed his
potentia, his possible largeness on the
scale of being."
The Merchant ofVenice runs in
rotating repertory through Dec.
9 at the Hilberry Theatre on the
Wayne State University campus.
Performances are at 8 p.m. Oct.
15, 16, 21, 22 and 23; Nov. 4,
5, 6, 19 and 20; and Dec. 9 as
well as 2 p.m. Dec. 8. $11-$18.
(313) 577-2972.
Shylock's
Speech
The Merchant of Venice, written in
1596, has been performed in both
Yiddish and Hebrew.
While some consider the play to
be anti-Semitic, Shylock's opening
words in this speech from Act III,
Scene One often have been cited to
demonstrate Shakespeare's lack of
prejudice:
7 am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes?
1-lath not a Jew hands, organs,
dimensions, senses, affections, passions?
— fed with the same food, hurt with
the same weapons, subject to the same
diseases, healed by the same means,
warmed and cooled by the same win-
ter and summer as a Christian is? If
you prick us, do we not bleed? If you
tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poi-
son us, do we not die?"
On the other hand, the speech's
closing lines have served to reinforce
Shylock's reputation as a bloodthirsty
usurer out "for a pound of flesh."
`And if you wrong us, shall we not
revenge? f I we are like you in the rest,
we will resemble you in that If a Jew
wrong a Christian, what is his
humility? Revenge! If a Christian
wrong a Jew, what should his suffer-
ance be by Christian example? Why
revenge! The villainy you teach me I
will execute, and it shall go hard but
I will better the instruction."
"Shylock is a candidate for the
least charming character in all of
Shakespeare, yet he fascinates us,
and for reasons that transcend his
transparent villainy," writes Harold
Bloom in Shakespeare: The
Invention of the Human. ...
"His utterances manifest a spirit
so potent, malign and negative as to
be unforgettable. Yet it is spirit, albeit
the spirit of resentment and revenge.
"I doubt that Shakespeare knew
enough about post-biblical history of
the Jews to have meditated upon it,
and therefore Shylock cannot be said
to embody Jewish history, except for
the unhappy truth that Shakespeare's
power has converted much of later
Jewish history into Shylock
"It would have been better for
the Jews, if not for most of The
Merchant of Venice's audiences, had
Shylock been a character less con-
spicuously alive." ❑
111 ,0iA'
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Detroit Jewish News 84