Who is Shylock? | The Merchant of Venice (2022) | Winter 2021/22

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Who is Shylock? | The Merchant of Venice (2022) | Winter 2021/22 | Shakespeare's Globe

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Күн бұрын

Actor Adrian Schiller discusses playing Shylock, misconceptions around the character, and the problematic nature of one of Shakespeare's most controversial plays, The Merchant of Venice.
Our unflinching production of The Merchant of Venice is now playing by candlelight in our Sam Wanamaker Playhouse until 9 April 2022: bit.ly/SWPMerc...
#TheMerchantOfVenice #PlayByCandlelight

Пікірлер: 12

@JordanVanRyn 2 жыл бұрын

I’m Jewish and a Shakespeare fan and I personally love this play because it showcases that people aren’t 100% good and they’ll find ways to outwardly cruel to each other. Plus it even calls out how problematic Elizabethan times really were. I mean Al Pacino played Shylock in a sympathetic light and I hope this play does too. Even though this play will start debates, I hope it starts conversations.

@ianmason2964 2 жыл бұрын

This was amazing. The ending was perfect. The best performance of this play I have ever seen. The added bonus it was in the most beautiful theatre in the country

@keithepley2132 2 жыл бұрын

I traveled from the USA (from an area that embraces many prejudices) for this production. MV has been a favorite Shakespeare play (along with Lear, Richard III, Midsummer's Night's Dream) since first reading 40 years ago. This production is by far the most powerful, profoundly in moving experience I've had at any art venue.

@alanjenkins2203 2 жыл бұрын

Saw this yesterday. It was utterly amazing. The portrayal of Shylock was superb; really took me by surprise and forced me to view a character I've taken pleasure in disliking in a new and sympathic way.

@arnavranka4510 2 жыл бұрын

Actually, I sympathized with Shylock in the entirety of the play. Nobody deserves to be publicly humiliated and forcibly converted to another religion.

@TheNivKo 2 жыл бұрын

Would Shylock really have been a sympathetic character for the Elizabethan audience?

@gnrkulim173 2 жыл бұрын

I love the he talks. Lord Athelhem

@PikaGirl713 2 жыл бұрын

Despite your personal opinions of the play, it is and has always been Antisemitic. Historically, set in a period where these feelings were commonplace and asserting the narrative of Jew-hatred was not woke, or against the grain. I understand wanting to shift the narrative to make this 'great' less problematic, but suppressing the history of work and pretending it's something else is damaging to my people. Regardless of the current intention of this play with the current audience, this play was designed for an audience that hated Jews. That isolated Jews and regularly commited mass acts of violence against Jews. You can read into it with a modern perspective, but it's not faithful and we can never claim he wrote it to be challenging and shocking - with what evidence, other than one's feelings?

@omershaik6374 2 жыл бұрын

Ok, i understand your point. But shakespeare i think really challenges the idea of "jews bad, christians good" in this play. Can you call lancelet gobbo good? Or bassanio? Or antonio? Or portia? They are vicious, all of them. This is a very cruel, no mercy sort of play. There is no one free of sin here. It's telling, i think, that when antisemitic people wanted to do merchant, they had to cut a lot for this play to uncritically work in their favor. Sure, the nazis put on this play non stop, but with many of shylock's parts - including the famous "if you prick us" speech - cut, and with jessica changed to a christian. This play is very bad at being a Christian moral superiority play, abd i think it's on purpose. (I'm a jew, by the way, and this is one of my favorite plays by the bard. I'm going to preform it this year with an all jewish cast in jerusalem)

@omershaik6374 2 жыл бұрын

Christian society in this play is as obsessed with money as shylock, maybe even more. It's unfaithful - when shylock condemns the christian husbands for being cruel to their wives, the play proves him right woth the ring situation. It's isn't really merciful - the duke's way of mercy is not killing shylock, but taking away all his money. But it's antonio who said before that it's better to die with your wealth than survive penniless. So is it really mercy? And is the conversion really merciful? Jessica is converted too in the play, by choice, and she is still called an infidel and is told she's damned. No one treats anyone here with mercy. This play is famous for the idea of "all that glisters is not gold" - and a moment after that portia says she's glad her black suitor falied the casket test, because he's black, even though the first thing he said to her is "please don't judge me by my race". I think it's hard to claim the christians are morally better in this play

@ianmason2964 2 жыл бұрын

This version really challenges that. I hope you got to see it

@letr214 2 жыл бұрын

My friend got to see this while on study abroad a few months ago and said that not only was this done beautifully, but the director herself is Jewish, and so was coming at this from a Jewish lens. Your hesitation with this play is valid though, and it definitely is not a play you simply take on without a Jewish background.