R E T IIINK

Jewish cast
members at
Stratford hope
theatergoers will
debate whether
Shakespeare
meant to paint
an anti-Semitic

caricature.

SUZANNE CHESSLER
Special to the Jewish News

A

4IN

5/4
2001

80

s they prepare to appear in the Stratford
Festival production of Shakespeare's The
Merchant of Venice, directed by Richard
Monette, two Jewish cast members recall
their fathers' early attitudes toward the play — each
representing a different side in the continuing con-
troversy over whether the play is anti-Semitic.
Paul Soles, 71, who takes the role of the Jewish
moneylender Shylock, recalls his dad's recitation and
veneration of the best-known speech — including
the line "If you prick us, do we not bleed?" — as
asking for an understanding of brotherhood.
Rami Posner, 26, who has the part of the Prince of
Morocco, a romantic suitor, recalls his dad writing a
letter of complaint to his sister's school when she was
studying Merchant.
Both agree that the play about the pursuit of love
and money, which runs May 8-Nov. 3, offers audi-
ences important starting points for exchanges of
ideas. It is one of 14 productions offered this year at
the Canadian cultural center.
"I would hope that in this year, 2001, we can dis-
cuss this incredibly complex, rich and layered text,

enjoy it and get stimulation and use from it in terms
of its ideas and what it points out to us that is uni-
versal," says Soles, who has worked in theater, film
and television and soon will be seen in the movie
The Score, starring Edward Norton and Robert De
Niro.
Soles has done considerable research to prepare for
his role and has gone over texts by Shakespeare
scholars, including Harold Bloom of Yale University
and James Shapiro of Columbia University.
"I don't think there's any question that in 1598,
when this play probably was first presented, that the
mood of the audience, the citizens of England, was
not warmly disposed to Jews," Soles says. "However,
the fact that they probably had never met a Jew
informs this a great deal.
"I think Shakespeare's intent was not so much to
present an anti-Semitic play but a play that includes
characters who show hypocrisy or falsehoods or flaws
which, in a larger sense, inform us about the human
condition and not any one particular tribe or race or
culture."
Soles, Canadian born and raised in a Conservative
home, brings many years of acting experience to his
evaluations. He appeared in a Broadway production
of Macbeth with Glenda Jackson and Christopher

Paul Soles as
Shylock and Lucy
Peacock as Portia
in Shakespeare's
"The Merchant
of Venice."