I used to teach one quarter of an honors class for my school’s English department, and the focus was always Shakespeare. I always treated it like something of a Shakespeare seminar, with roughly one play a week as much as possible, which came out to five over roughly eight weeks. And while I didn’t teach the same plays every year during this period, I always started with The Merchant of Venice, a play I figured was good enough to be a first play for students who may not be used to the language and at the same time was one that most of them probably haven’t read (i.e. it wasn’t Romeo and Juliet).
And I also ran parts of the BBC production, so this one more than the others is familiar to me.
Notable cast members: I thought John Franklyn-Robbins, Baptista from The Taming of the Shrew, looked familiar. He’s Antonio here, the actual merchant of Venice. Along for the ride are some more faces and names that ring bells, most notably John Rhys-Davies as one of Antonio’s friends Salerio. John Nettles plays Bassanio, someone my mom would recognize from Midsummer Murders. And for Portia is actress Gemma Jones, maybe best recognized today as Madame Pomfrey in the Harry Potter movies.
Trivia: Oddly enough, though Merchant of Venice ran without a peep in the UK, a number of US groups dedicated to fighting the forces of anti-Semitism urged PBS to cancel it sight unseen, believing it would dig up a lot of anti-Jewish hatred. That concern is probably unfounded as this particular production played the lines to show Shylock as the victim, not the victimizer. Granted, it’s easy to see that reaction in hindsight as jumping the gun a bit, and there’s a good reason to see this play as anti-Semitic, but Shakespeare wrote enough ambiguity into the script to allow for a more pro-Shylock reading. Shakespeare wrote this play at a time when it was literally illegal to be Jewish and live in England, so many English people assumed the Jews were just the worst as a result. As it is, unlike many of Shakespeare’s contemporaries, there’s some wiggle room in the script to give Shylock some nuance that can’t exist in, say, Marlowe’s The Jew of Malta.
The play: As I said, this play makes Shylock out to be the victim and outsider in Venetian society. Considering all the abuse he suffers, the way many of the characters openly laugh at him, and lines Shakespeare uses that make the characters out to be anti-Semitic and, in the case of one line for Portia, racist. Portia, after seeing the King of Morocco, a man described as having a darker completion (but not so much here), fails the test to marry her and she openly says she hopes all men as dark as he likewise fail the test.
But here, we see Shylock, and yes, he may be a moneylender, but he hurts. Society looks down on him. His daughter Jessica robbed him of a lot of his goods, including a ring that was the first gift Shylock received from his late wife (and Jessica trades it for a monkey). While we cannot excuse Shylock’s desire to have a pound of Antonio’s flesh, we likewise can’t completely blame him for being pushed too far. Actor Warren Mitchell shows outright anguish when Shylock is forced to convert at the end of Act IV, openly and silently crying as his skullcap is knocked from his head and a Christian cross presented to his face for a kiss. When he gives the “If you prick us, do we not bleed” speech, you can see a man who reached the end of his rope.
And this play isn’t exactly forgiving to Jessica, who converts to marry a Christian man, but still is told she’s still a Jew to her face and therefore not trustworthy by a couple characters. One is the comic relief servant, so he can perhaps be dismissed. The other is her husband in a scene that, theoretically, could be playful (as it is played here), but has a darker undercurrent that could cause trouble down the road.
As for the rest, it’s a fairly standard Shakespearean romantic comedy. Bassanio wants to win Portia’s hand, and even though they both love each other, he has to fulfill the requirements of her father’s will. That involves choosing the correct casket of three, and since we saw two other men choose poorly, we know he will anyway. Why did Bassanio need to borrow all that money to woo Portia? I don’t know. It looks like he could have just gone to her place and chose the casket without bringing tons of goods and gifts.
Then again, this is a really mean play. Portia and her servant Nerissa, both newly married and in disguise as men, convince their respective husbands to give up rings so they can, I dunno, prank them later, but the prank seems to hinge on whether or not the men can be convinced to give up their rings to virtual strangers, and then berating the two later for giving the rings up to their own wives without knowing it. How is this joke anything other than a cruel test of a marriage that could be in a lot of trouble later?
Then again, maybe that’s what these people are: just rather cruel.
Grade: It’s a fine adaptation, one that adds nuance that Shakespeare may not have intended. A-
Next: Ugh. One of my least favorite plays is up next. Let’s see if the BBC can make me at least enjoy their production All’s Well That Ends Well.
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