By columnist Allegra Mostyn-Owen
If you’re in London, try and catch the Royal Shakespeare Company’s production of The Merchant of Venice 1936 at the Trafalgar Theatre which runs till 25 January. It’s well worth it.
The scene is set in Bethnal Green in 1936 and the play is made to culminate in the Battle of Cable Street in Shadwell. Headlines from newspapers of the day – especially the Daily Mail and the Express – are projected to give a sense of the mood of the times. In the play, a gora named Antonio borrows from a Jewish money lender.
In this production, Shylock the Jew is very convincingly acted by a woman, Tracy-Ann Oberman who also adapted the original text with Brigid Larmour, who in turn directs this production.
Shakespeare is sometimes accused of having written an antisemitic play but he gave Shylock a terrific speech:
Talking of Antonio, she says:
He hath disgraced me, and
hindered me half a million; laughed at my losses,
mocked at my gains, scorned my nation, thwarted my
bargains, cooled my friends, heated mine
enemies; and what’s his reason? I am a Jew. Hath
not a Jew eyes? hath 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 winter and summer, as
a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed?
if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison
us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not
revenge? If 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 sufferance be by
Christian example? Why, revenge. The villany you
teach me, I will execute, and it shall go hard but I
will better the instruction.’
Act III scene 1
Shylock is bent on revenge after a lifetime of insults; what makes it still more galling is that her only daughter elopes with a friend of Antonio’s. When Antonio -a Blackshirt- loses his investment, she claims her ‘pound of flesh’ off her contract for debt. But Shylock goes too far though she is given a chance to show mercy. The heroine Portia gets to dress up as a man and act as advocate in court.
‘The quality of mercy is not strained;
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:
‘T is mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown:
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptred sway;
It is enthronèd in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God’s
When mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Jew,
Though justice be thy plea, consider this,
That, in the course of justice, none of us
Should see salvation: we do pray for mercy;
And that same prayer doth teach us all to render
The deeds of mercy.’
Act IV scene 1
Shylock is immune to this appeal and so ends up losing everything in court. Meanwhile -and this is the innovation in this production- the fascists, under the protection of the police, are massing and the dockers and Irish and trades unionists, communists, socialists and anarchists are all siding with the Jews to stop the Blackshirts breaking through. The dockworkers, many of whom were Irish, were grateful that Jewish families had invited their hungry children into their homes during the dock strikes of 1889 and 1921. Neighbours stood with neighbours.
‘They shall not pass!’ The cry went up echoing the Republican battle cry in the Spanish Civil War and the line held in Cable Street in 1936. Star performer Tracy-Ann Oberman said in a statement: ‘The message of my female Shylock – based on my Great Grandma, a widow in the East End standing up to Oswald Mosley and the British Union of Fascists, with all her neighbours and others horrified by the message of BUF – feels more pertinent than ever. The play is about unity, standing together against hatred and the play’s impact has been beyond my wildest hopes and ambitions for it.’
So this Shakespearean tragedy is made to end on a note of solidarity and shared humanity. I found it very moving.
