Heaven on Earth (AKA the Globe Theatre)

(Disclaimer: This is a long literary post—skim if you don’t feel like putting on an English major hat for the next 15 minutes)

Today, I got to be a Venetian. We attended Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice at the Globe Theatre. The space itself is a studious reproduction of the original that simulates the same building materials and general theatre-going experience of the days of old. Even better, we got to stand in the Yard for the performance, just as the groundlings used to do. It was one hundred percent the best theatre experience of my life. Sore feet and limited elbow room are nothing compared to the incredible relationship an audience member in the Yard has with the actors on stage. The performers interacted directly with us:  they walked through the audience, sat on the edge of the stage, spoke directly to individuals out in the crowd, and made us feel as though we were not visitors in London, UK, in 2015, but a group of street people in Venice during the 1600s.

Besides the total immersion of the viewing experience, seeing the play performed took my understanding of its meaning to a whole new level. The anti-Semitic content makes it a controversial one, but Jonathan Pryce’s performance as the Jew Shylock turned a potentially offensive role into one that struck an important nerve for today’s society—religion. With Shylock attempting to extract a strange punishment for an unpaid debt from Antonio by refusing to take money but instead seeking “a pound of flesh” from nearest Antonio’s heart, Pryce’s character is certainly a villain in some respects. However, the directors of this play did an excellent job of balancing this villainy with the source of Shylock’s aggression—the discrimination he has experienced as an “alien” and outcast in Venetian society. The physical pain that he suffers was apparent on his face, and we were so close that I could see his hands shaking as he tried to pry Antonio’s hands loose when Antonio gripped his face in the most demeaning way possible to embarrass him in an argument. The globs of spit that landed on Shylock every time he was around a group of “Christians” were real—we could see them oozing down his coat. Being in the Yard had another effect in the way it made the audience part of the action; it felt as if we were part of the mob surrounding and encouraging the complete degradation of another human being.

Pryce’s emotional distress was clearly evident in his monologue—“Has a Jew not eyes”—in which he heartbreakingly compares the way that he and the Christians are all fundamentally human, yet he is treated so differently. However, the most gut-wrenching moment of today was one that was not included in Shakespeare’s original—a new epilogue with a final, forced conversion scene of Shylock from a Jew to a Christian. After having outwitted Shylock in court, Portia (disguised as a male lawyer to fix the situation for Antonio) delivers Shylock’s fate into the hands of Antonio and the Duke. These two spare Shylock’s life on the condition that he give some of his money to his daughter who has eloped with one of their friends, but more importantly, Antonio demands that Shylock become a Christian. The cry of anguish that comes out of Pryce could not be any more torturous if he had actually been stabbed. His red hat that marked him as a Jew is then ripped off and thrown on the ground, and he is physically prevented from retrieving it. In Shakespeare’s original, after Shylock crawls off in defeat, a happy, celebratory scene wraps up the play with the two couples’ successful reunions after the trial. The version we saw today, however, counteracted that seemingly cavalier attitude towards Shylock’s demise by having several members of the cast come out dressed in white, with Shylock following. He was then forced to go through the ceremony of baptism to complete his conversion. During this scene, he kept his eyes away from the audience or anyone else on stage, which was a marked contrast to the way that he had used the audience as part of his performance previously, directly addressing them as part of the court or with his asides to let us know his true feelings about a scene. When they poured the final cup of water over his head, his eyes were squeezed shut and his lips were trembling as he looked up towards the sky, and a single, ominous gong closed the play. Although I am hardly ever a fan of adding entire scenes to a classic, I felt this was a much needed addition for a modern audience. Shakespeare’s original could be interpreted not as condoning anti-Semitism but merely as commenting on it, but the end is too happy—after having shown no mercy to Shylock, the happy Christians merrily enjoy their lovers’ rewards. Thus, the audience is too busy laughing at Nerissa and Gratiano to consider the complex layers of guilt and hypocrisy in the play. Considering the immense suffering of the Jews that has taken place throughout history, it would be unthinkable to ignore the fact that this is a 21st century audience that wants to see acknowledgment of the glaring injustice of Jewish treatment. With the new addition, the ending with Shylock’s conversion is sobering; it left me with a puddle of tears threatening to spill out.

This dynamite acting performance by Pryce was not overdone; he pulled off the role of a broken, angry man trying to maintain what little dignity he had left very well. In my opinion, the interpretation of Shylock was very similar to Al Pacino’s. Both manage to portray Shylock as a sympathetic villain—which seems much more true to life than anything else. In our world, the line between black and white is not so clear cut, and neither is the guilt in The Merchant of Venice. After experiencing this play, I found it both interesting and depressing to consider the ostracizing effects that religion continues to have on us in the 21^st century.

In an interview with The Guardian, Pryce explained the complexity of playing the role perfectly:  “Shylock tries to get his revenge, sure, but Antonio and the Christians, I think they’re monsters – these Bullingdon Club types who’ve persecuted him for years, spat on him, kicked him. And suddenly they need him.” (http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2015/apr/26/jonathan-pryce-interview-shylock-merchant-of-venice-shakespeares-globe). Even this master actor found playing the role of Shylock to be a foreboding task.

Overall, my first time at the Globe has already been the highlight of my trip; it will certainly be hard to beat. Even though I am a proud English major, I have started to learn that there is so much more to be gleaned from a play when watching it performed than merely reading it. Each character was brought to life in a unique way, and though I ended the play in tears, in other scenes the actors produced golden nuggets of humor I missed while reading that when performed had me belly-laughing like Santa. To wrap up this incredibly long but hopefully not too boring post, The Merchant of Venice put me through the whole range of emotions—and it was worth it.