Shylock: a Stage History of Anti-Semitism

Shylock: A Stage History of Anti-Semitism Part of what makes the works of William Shakespeare so significantly transcendental is that his plays are able to flourish through ever-changing societies. Over the course of nearly 400 years, his plays have remained some of the most beloved in literature because of their ability to speak to audiences of every age, race, ethnicity, class, and gender. By looking at the performance history of a specific play, or a specific character in that play, we become aware of how Shakespeare’s work changes over time, is shaped by society and, in turn, shapes society around it. The evolution of Shylock in The Merchant of Venice, especially on the German stage, is a great example of this simultaneous influence of society and change. “The history of The Merchant of Venice gives us a glimpse of the changes in the theatre over a period of 360 years while the history of the playing of Shylock gives us the groundwork for some generalizations as to the shifts of social attitudes over the same period” (Lelyveld 3). Written as a comedy, The Merchant of Venice has undergone a sort of genre shift in the last hundred years or so. Along with plays such as Taming of the Shrew, Measure for Measure, Othello, and The Tempest, it has become more widely accepted as a problem play. Problem plays always deal with a societal controversy such as racism, colonialism, or sexism. In this case, the problem that seems unavoidable is anti-Semitism. However, it is important when reading any work that is not contemporary to consider the time period in which it was written, as well as the possible intentions of the author. In her introduction to the play in The Norton Shakespeare, Katherine Maus poses questions about the play such as, “Is it anti-Semitic? Does it criticize anti-Semitism? Does it merely represent anti-Semitism without either endorsement or condemnation? Are the Christians right to call Shylock, the Jewish moneylender, a ‘devil,’ an ‘inexorable dog’; or is he merely the understandably resentful victim of their bigotry?” (247). Thinking about these questions as we read the play helps give more depth to the character of Shylock and provides us with an understanding of the wide range of performance styles the role has taken on since its inception. Based on Marlowe’s The Jew of Malta, The Merchant of Venice focuses on a Jewish man as the center of discrimination. In Shakespeare’s day, however, this treatment of a Jew would not have been viewed as offensive. On the contrary, “audiences of the day primed to view Shylock as a natural-born villain, would have been surprised to find any of his speeches moving. Since the Holocaust, however, productions of The Merchant of Venice have challenged the age-old caricature of the Jew” (Downer 209). In the years following the Holocaust, productions of this play have tended to move away from the idyllic version of Portia’s Belmont and turn their attentions to Shylock and the ghetto. Arthur Horowitz believes that “contemporary performance history is awash in guilt, controversy, re-examination and reinterpretation - becoming a receptacle for innumerable ethnic, religious and political corrections, adaptations and emendations - subversions and provocations - with adaptors and directors willfully mandating their own standards of positivity and negativity” (8). When the play was written, Shylock was presented as a generally comic figure. Charles Macklin was the first noted actor to make the jump from comedian to villain when he accepted the role in 1741. Although Shylock was the speaker of many emotional passages, actors of the time usually chose to portray him as either comical or evil, the norm for Jewish roles in the Renaissance. These portrayals “echoed medieval Christian dramas in which the Jew was represented in the same manner as Satan: clever and calculating, a master of negotiation and deal-doing, at once physically and verbally comical” (Downer 217), and were compared to other Machiavellian characters such as Richard III who could “cite Scripture for his purpose” (1.3.94). In the Romantic period, Shylock evolved once again through the help of Edmund Kean, who saw the character as one who possessed many more human qualities than were depicted by his predecessors. For the first time in history Shylock was pitied by audiences rather than reviled and in 1817, critic William Hazlitt wrote that “he becomes a half-favorite with the philosophical part of the audience, who are disposed to think that Jewish revenge is at least as good as Christian injuries” (206). After Kean’s sympathetic Shylock came Henry Irving’s tragic character. Ever since Irving transformed the character to one of high tragedy in the Victorian period, the play has remained resolutely Shylock’s. Historically, the time in which The Merchant of Venice was written was one of religious controversy. “Hatred for the Jews in the sixteenth century is not a matter of conjecture. Reviling the Jew was part of the social contention of Shakespeare’s day” (Lelyveld 7). The persecution of these people was the norm based on the common, shared belief system in Elizabethan England. The uniformity of the opinion, however, left little room for opposing groups and, therefore, bloody conflicts erupted all over Europe. When we think of The Merchant of Venice in the terms of its origin, we must recognize that Shakespeare was merely projecting the world around him. Unfortunately, history tends to repeat itself and, without possibly knowing the sentiments of humanity that would exist hundreds of years later, he created a character that would further ignite the religious hatred that existed in his own lifetime. The nineteenth century produced newer, much more deadly anti-Semitic ideologies than those with which Shakespeare was familiar. Jews became identified by their race rather than their religion, and were held responsible for all the wickedness prevalent in the modern world. The Merchant of Venice is a play in which “the Christians’ generosity, grace, and self-assurance have a disconcerting racist tinge. The magnanimous, depressive Antonio proudly acknowledges kicking and spitting on Shylock...These people find it hard to deal with those different from themselves: their society is based as much on the exclusion of the alien as on the inclusion of the similar” (Maus 250). The racist edge presented by the dominant Christian roles spurred the villainous view of Shylock during this time. “In Bill Alexander’s Royal Shakespeare Company production of 1987, Christians not only excluded Shylock from their society but were also actively hostile, pelting him with stones as they chased him onto the stage” (Downer 217). Pity for Shylock during this time was nonexistent. In the years leading up to World War II, portrayals of his character became increasingly despicable. No matter how he was played, the undertones of unyielding hatred and maliciousness never subsided. The steady growth of the Nazi regime and the rapid buildup of hostility toward the Jews brought plays such as The Merchant of Venice to the forefront of the public media. An anonymous pamphlet was published in Berlin at the time, chastising German conservatives on their failure to “come to grips with the Jewish question”. This pamphlet insisted that the only way to successfully “drive them out was to seize their wealth: ‘just as Portia once destroyed Shylock, so Germania destroys this nation of international speculators’...There was added menace, too, in the fact that he talked not merely of confiscation, but of destruction” (Gross 317). Propaganda such as this was a common way to incorporate popular works, such as Shakespeare’s, into the media to reach the masses through familiar terms. It has been stated that “despite the playwright’s skill in humanizing qualities of Shylock, ‘his portrait served to crystallize and reinforce an anti-Semitic literary stereotype for centuries to come’. Shylock has a prominent place in anti-Semitic mythology” (312). In January of 1933, Nazi leader Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany, giving him the power that would later make him responsible for the near genocide of the Jewish race in Europe. Although it was nearly impossible to foretell to what extent the results of Hitler’s power would reach, it was unmistakable from the beginning that something evil was in the works. One of the world’s strongest nations at the time had been infected with the idea of genocide, the strongest form of active anti-Semitism. During the strict cultural changes enforced by the Nazi’s in Europe, some stage productions were allowed to remain. Selections such as The Jew of Malta and The Merchant of Venice even grew to the height of their popularity during this period. By autumn of 1939, Shakespeare was the singular playwright that was not officially banned from Germany. The Nazi’s believed that he had himself been “essentially Germanic in spirit: his works were extolled for the lessons they offered in patriotism, the need for strong leadership, and the overriding claims of the State” (319). In an observational survey conducted after World War II, respondents were asked what some of their influences had been that promoted their anti-Semitic attitudes. One of the most commonly cited answers was The Merchant of Venice. In Paul Rose’s 1942 production of the play in Berlin, an assortment of extras was scattered throughout the audience with the sheer purpose of shouting, jeering, and cursing whenever Shylock would come to the stage. It was said that “the voice of the people chimed in from the gallery, their angry cries and shrill whistles echoed from the stalls” (321). A year later, director Lothar Müthel staged a production starring Werner Krauss in Vienna. Krauss had previously played the role of Shylock in the 1920’s and had just finished another Jew-bashing role, the film Jew Suss which appeared for the first time in 1940. In that twenty year span, Krauss’ depiction of Shylock grew to be one of the most horrific in history. According to one critic, Krauss’ first entrance was “enough to make the entire audience shudder: ‘With a crash and a weird train of shadows, something revoltingly alien and startlingly repulsive crawled across the stage’.” Gross’ description of Krauss’ Shylock is as follows: “The pale pink face, surrounded by bright red hair and beard, with its unsteady, cunning little eyes; the greasy caftan with the yellow prayer-shawl slung round; the splay-footed, shuffling walk; the foot stamping with rage; the claw-like gestures with the hands; the voice, now bawling, now muttering - all add up to a pathological image of the East European Jewish type, expressing all its inner and outer uncleanliness, emphasizing danger through humor” (322). If the very pronouns that associate humanity with a being, such as “he” and “him” have been stripped from this illustration, painting Shylock as “the” and “it”, it is disturbing to imagine the actually performance. This lack of mortality in such a small descriptive paragraph leads one to associate demonic, subhuman attributes to Krauss’ character. Another critic described Krauss’ performance as “part madman and part village idiot” (Horowitz 14). Five years after his revival of the role, Krauss was called to Stuttgart to be presented before a de-Nazification court. He was there fined an amount comparable to £125 for his satanic performance and convicted as a minor offender for his actions. Of the people that inhabited the European countries that fell victim to Nazi domination during World War II, approximately nine million were Jews. Before the Nazi’s lost power, more than six million of these Jews were murdered. As the magnitude of this disaster spread and was fully comprehended, The Merchant of Venice finished its transformation into the genre of the problem plays, and the character of Shylock became evermore delicate. The issues that the part raised were the same as they had always been, but they had become much more personally upsetting for viewers. Where textual innovations and performance tricks had previously been needed to sway the audience in one direction or another, existing tension inside the theater became enough. All one had to do was recall the circumstances going on in the world beyond the doors of the playhouse and they would be moved just as much, if not more, by the onstage proceedings. “By the time Krauss played Shylock in Vienna, the Final Solution was well advanced. In December 1943 a team of Italian police and Fascist agents raided a Jewish hospital in the former ghetto and arrested all its patients, including those too old or sick to move. A number of private homes were also raided, with police sirens wailing to drown the cries of the victims. All in all, 212 Jews were deported, out of a community numbering some 2,000. Most of them were sent to Auschwitz; fifteen of them survived” (Gross 323). In the shadow of the concentration camps and the mass deaths in the gas chambers, performances of the role of Shylock were significantly altered. Associating Shylock with the role of the Holocaust’s poster child, as well as equating the horrors of concentration camps to the demands for the pound of flesh, lead to reconstructions of The Merchant of Venice set inside camps such as Auschwitz and Theresienstadt, with Shylock as a prisoner. Other productions include Shylock in roles that would allow him more sympathy, such as that of a banker, an undercover Israeli soldier, a black man, or a Victorian banker. Anytime a director chose to present Shylock as the traditional villain, it was done ironically. Another directorial solution to the post-war Shylock predicament was to inflate the perspective that painted the Christian characters in a darker light and, therefore, cause them to be the brunt of public discrimination for their racist demands. Arthur Horowitz believes that “post-Holocaust productions and adaptations of The Merchant of Venice have caused major re-considerations and re-shapings of the character of Shylock and a profound re-examination of the semiotics and implications of the ‘pound of flesh’ within a post-Auschwitz context. This leads to the observation that, since the Holocaust, The Merchant of Venice has perhaps become as much ‘history play’ as ‘problem play’ - a history play about the relationship between Jew and Gentile” (9). Film director Michael Radford chose to follow this particular approach. With any production of Merchant of Venice it is impossible to completely detach oneself from the undercurrents of anti-Semitic suggestions. However, Radford “skillfully balanced the portrayal of Jews in a Christian society, informing the modern audience of oppressive circumstances under which Jews lived in Venice of that time period as well as showing a mournful parallelism between a pious Christian and a dogmatic Jew” (Purple Tigress 1). Two major themes in Shakespeare’s comedies are inclusion and exclusion. In most Shakespearean comedy we are presented with at least one character who remains isolated at the end of the play, often after a group of his counterparts get married. Marjorie Garber feels that this character’s isolation “somehow both underscores the happiness of the ‘insiders’ and marks the precariousness of joy” (295). Just like Malvolio is left standing outside of the group of happy couples at the end of Twelfth Night, Shylock is excluded in the end as well. It is also worth noting, however, that Antonio is also left alone. It seems that the bittersweet ending of the play, that could also be viewed as strictly bitter, presents not only the Jew, but the Christian as well, as the perpetual outsider. Radford’s film does a great job of creating sympathy for both Antonio as well as Shylock though its ability to cover certain ground that cannot be reached in a play. Al Pacino, who played Shylock in the film, had previously shied away from stage productions because of what he called the “heavy sting of anti-Semitism”, but he felt that Radford’s film countered his feelings on the role. Pacino’s goal was to bring out the human characteristics of Shylock that are so often overlooked. He ignored Macklin’s villain and Krauss’ Machiavellian fiend and created a Shylock who, despite some bad choices, possessed a shred of humanity. He described his character as one who has been “pushed over the edge, not by his own persecution, but by the whole persecution in Venice”. Shylock is not a man born with innate villainous qualities, he is presented with moral and ethical qualities and becomes the product of his surroundings. Pacino’s initial read of the character was that of “a man who was seemingly depressed, who had lost his wife, who had a lot of confidence in his work...but at the same time was feeling the sadness”. Radford presented Shylock as a sympathetic, empathetic character whose pain we can understand. In an interview on the film, Pacino explained that he believed “the more we go into the human Shylock, the more we understand him, the more we will leave the ideas of anti-Semitism”. The Merchant of Venice, “a play that began its stage career with a comic Shylock in a false nose has become transmuted, over the centuries and especially after the Holocaust, into a drama of pathos, loss, and mutual incomprehension, with Shylock often - though not always - emerging as a tragic figure incongruously caught in the midst of a romantic comedy” (Garber 282). Without consciously knowing what would transpire in history hundreds of years after his death, Shakespeare created a situation that would become highly relevant in our society. In answer to the questions previously posed by Maus, Shakespeare’s England was “roused to an outbreak of traditional Jew-baiting; and for good and evil, Shakespeare the man was like his fellows. He planned a Merchant of Venice to let the Jew dog have it, and thereby to gratify his own patriotic pride of race...The text itself preserves sufficient evidence of the author’s fixed intent to exhibit his Shylock as an inhuman scoundrel, whose diabolical cunning is bent on gratifying a satanic lust for Christian flesh, the Jew, in fact, who was the ogre of medieval story and the cur to be execrated by all honest men” (Charlton 127). However, it is quite possible that Shakespeare never even encountered a Jew in his life because of the banishment of Jews from London during this time. As a way to redeem Shakespeare from the throes of anti-Semitism, Charlton poses a new set of questions: “Moved by his intelligible prejudices as nationalist and politician, Shakespeare the man wished to write a play embodying a Shylock who had been created down the ages by the mob, a diabolical bogey of radical antipathies. How far, it must be asked, how far in the making of the play did Shakespeare the dramatist’s intuitive sense of the necessities of drama, albeit unconsciously and perhaps quite unrecognizably to his contemporary audiences, modify the nature of the Jew he was dramatizing? Is there in drama any obvious power to effect such unwitting transformations?” (131). The Merchant of Venice, in modern society, is a deeply disturbing play, the meaning of which cannot be suppressed into one or two accounts. Garber suggests that “the play - any play, but especially a strong one - is the sum of all its meanings, all its intentions, conscious an unconscious, including some that the author could never have intended” (312). This dissemination of meaning is what makes the arts of literature and drama so powerful. Our power to connect and interpret is what keeps us coming back and what gives the works from writers like Shakespeare the strength to live on for centuries. 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 villain you teach me I will exe- cute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction. (3.1.49-61)

Works CIted
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Horowitz, Arthur. "Shylock After Auschwitz: The Merchant Of Venice On The Post-Holocaust Stage—Subversion, Confrontation, And Provocation." Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory Fall 8.3 (2007): 7-19. Print.
Lelyveld, Toby. Shylock on the Stage. Cleveland: Press of Western Reserve University, 1960. Print.
Maus, Katherine Eisaman. "The Merchant of Venice." Print. Rpt. in The Norton Shakespeare. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt. 2nd ed. New York: W.W. Norton and, 2009. 247-55. Print.
The Merchant of Venice. Dir. Michael Radford. Perf. Al Pacino, Jeremy Irons, Joseph Fiennes, and Lynn Collins. Sony, 2004. DVD.
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Shakespeare, William. “The Comical History of the Merchant of Venice, or Otherwise Called the Jew of Venice.” The Norton Shakespeare. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt. 2nd ed. New York: W.W. Norton, 2009. 257-311. Print.