The Merchant of Venice is an anti-Semitic play in which Shylock, the Jew, is an avaricious, cunning and heartless devil. Even his own daughter deserts him to become a Christian. The famous speech “Hath not a Jew eyes?…If you prick us, do we not bleed?” is easily played to opposite effect and was so construed until the late 19th century. Furthermore, the comedy, which requires a happy ending, depends upon this villainous reading.
However, the durability of Shakespeare arises from his characters containing sufficient ambiguity to allow for divergent interpretations. There is enough in Shylock for a skilful actor to inveigle a sympathetic portrayal mitigating the prejudice the play promotes. And Jeremy Crutchley is everything one wants in such a Shylock. His performance is studied, nuanced and moving, and his Shylock’s humiliation a masterclass in achieving dramatic impact. Graham Weir, as the merchant Antonio, is a perfect counterpart, as refined and controlled. The two play exceptionally well off one another.
In countering the anti-Semitism a director may also elect to recontextualise the play for instance in 1943 during the Shoah, as Roy Sargeant has, and many modern productions now do. Sargeant also has Tubal, a Jew and friend of Shylock, prominently present in the court leaving as if disapproving of Shylock, making the latter’s merciless obduracy the actions of an individual not the race. There are no such directions in Shakespeare’s text; Tubal is last mentioned in Act 3. Sargeant also adds a final scene with swastika banners in which German soldiers pin the yellow star to Shylock.
Ironically, the Merchant was actually staged in 1943 by the SS in Vienna to celebrate the successful deportation to death camps of all the Jews in the city. Shylock was played by Goebbels’s favourite Werner Krauss.
Merchant is supposed to be a comedy, but once the tragedy of Shylock is admitted, the comedy collapses. Shylock’s humiliation all but ends the play; for what do we now care about the workings out of petty love intrigues amongst a bunch of selfish and vain Fascists. This fault line is exacerbated by the vast gap between Crutchley and Weir’s naturalism, and the uninspiring leads (Clayton Boyd as Bassanio and Tessa Jubber as Portia) with their supporting cast who with a few exceptions (such as John Caviggia) are over the top, vulgarised, comic mummers. The tragedy of Shylock is a must-see; the comedy of the Merchant hard going.
