I recognize that I can be insensitive on the question of anti-semitism for an emotional reason: I was raised in a tribal milieu in whch I never heard the end of anti-semitism, then I went out in the world and I encountered hardly any. So that makes me not really believe in anti-semitism. And in this spirit, of self-correction, last Friday night in Boston I went to The Merchant of Venice, a national production with F. Murray Abraham as Shylock.
As I walked through the crowded lobby of a lovely theater in the city where I was born, I thought, well there are surely a lot of Jews here and they’re all smiling and supporting a show that is a landmark of anti-semitism, so I wondered why they were doing that? How they could stomach it? Was there some value in the show beyond the pure Shakespearean brand question, and F. Murray Abraham brand/imprimatur?
I soon had an answer. It’s been years since I saw Merchant of Venice, and I was staggered by how much anti-Jewish statement there is in the play, how much the gentile Venetians hated the Jews and how this hatred had scorched Shylock’s soul and determined him to get back at them. Christians revenge, so will Jews, he says in one speech– and Antonio spat on me just last week and treated me like a dog. This back and forth battle, of deep racial resentment, seemed to me historically accurate, and I liked that about the play, the strength of the depiction of real currents of history.
At the end of the climactic trial scene, when Shylock fails to obtain his pound of flesh, and the law turns on him for attempted murder and he is forced to convert, Abraham leaves his yarmulke on the stage in this production, and for the rest of the play, Act V, the happy wedding scene back in Belmont, the thing kicks around the stage like a black spot. And then when F. Murray Abraham came out for the curtain call and he picked up the yarmulke and kissed it and put it on his head, I confess that I cried. It was an incredibly powerful moment, and beautiful staging– to see a desecrated religion rehabilitated.
The other thing that amazed me was how much power Shylock has. He makes a contract that would be illegal anywhere in the world, and in fact is deemed illegal but only at the last minute when he has the knife poised over Antonio’s heart, and is able to control the life of the play through that contract. And though he is hated, people defer to him. They need his money and his wit. There is even a suggestion in the play of a core principle of philosemitism, that a society that does not treat its Jews well will not thrive. And while there is anti-semitism in Venice, Shylock is almost able legally to kill a leading citizen of the town. The whole play swirls around him, due to his financial power. And this Theatre for a New Audience production, directed by Darko Tresnjak, invested Shylock’s house and scene with mystery and wisdom. That also is power. And Shylock gets the best lines in the play. So I saw in Shakespeare’s play a witness to Jewish power. Not just victimization.
And Shylock is way more interesting and passionate than the goyim in the play. The two suitors are wastrels, and they party all the time. Tresnjak cast a very fair square-jawed blond in the Antonio role who has nothing of Shylock’s gravitas, and the overall impression left of non-Jewish life was superficial and hedonistic. You would much rather be the Jew, and have Shylock’s “sacred nation” as he puts it behind you.
And that idea reminded me of Elaine May’s 1972 movie the Heartbreak Kid, maybe my parents’ favorite movie. You may remember that the Charles Grodin character marries a loud Jewish woman and on his honeymoon in Florida he starts flirting with Cybill Shepherd on the beach and the next thing you know he’s broken it off with his wife and has launched a battle to win the shiksa’s hand. The movie ends with a wedding and you get to see the Minnesota family that Grodin has won for all his effort and it’s bland and characterless, Eddie Arnold plays it flat/cardigan/tinsel. My parents loved the ending. Well that is part of the message of Merchant of Venice, the Tresnjak production, why would you want to be in with the goyim when you can be part of this great and mysterious tradition.
Though I would insist that both Merchant of Venice and Heartbreak Kid describe vanished worlds. Jews are not confined to moneymaking, though they are still powerful; anti-semitism is not a force of nature and Jews are not an alien American species to non-Jews (just look at the Fockers).
