Continuing
the e-mail exchange about the “Merchant of Venice” …
Hi
Claudia,
I just
remembered how important Kenneth Branagh has been for the response of the
populace (me, for instance!) to Shakespeare. There really wasn’t anything
“cool” by Shakespeare at the time except for Kenneth Branagh. (And, as I
certainly mentioned, it is such a pity that “In the Bleak Midwinter” is not on
DVD. Maybe I wouldn’t even like it that much now, but it is such a treasured
memory …)
I am
looking forward to your commentary to my commentary … (Have been looking into
“Julius Caesar” by the Globe, and, as usual, they significantly increased my
“tolerance level” for the play. I was impressed how the actors are dealing with
a difficult rhetorical text like this – so that it doesn’t get the least bit boring.)
…
Hi
Barbara,
You can
borrow my screenplay of “In the Bleak Midwinter” if you want it.
…
O,
great! Of course I would like that.
(I have got it in the meantime and read it, but
the memory of what I had liked so much about it didn’t come back. (I distinctly
remember to have seen it back then (1995?) in the “Museum” cinema without
subtitles and understood next to nothing. So I had now what I didn’t have back
then – the text! – but “everything else” that I obviously liked so much about
it is gone. Funny … There is an interesting issue, though, about what “remains”
of a text and how difficult it is to “get hold” of this kind of memories. I often
noticed it, but I don’t know if I will ever come to write about it.)
There was another
e-mail by me, which I can’t find anymore, where I objected to the idea of the
play being performed without Shylock being a Jew. I became increasingly aware
of how important an issue this is, especially when I remembered that David
Suchet - whom we both love as an actor, and who played
Shylock in “Playing Shakespeare”, and who IS Jewish, by the way, if we both
remember this correctly - remarked that it is essential for the play that
Shylock is a Jew. And I still don’t know why, but I ABSOLUTELY agreed! There
might be as much of him in my reading of Shylock as of Al Pacino, but I didn’t
remember this until now because I haven’t seen it recently. In my experience,
he is one of these “superintelligent” actors who tend to get their characters a
hundred and twenty percent right.
I also clarified that I certainly don’t think of
Shakespeare as a philanthropist who wanted to denounce inhumanity on the stage
but of a writer who recognized a great story when he came by it and could tell
it in a way that people would want to spend their money in the Globe instead of
another theatre, or at the cock fighting. But his METHOD of doing this – maybe
because of his own experience as an actor - entailed that he made his
characters so interesting and “seductive” – ESPECIALLY the villains! - that we come
to understand them or even sympathize with them. (I CAN’T be the only person
who is fascinated with Richard III !) And Shylock is one of these characters
where he goes so far that it is easy to “turn around” the play (as the film
with Al Pacino shows), or, at least, make both sides even.
And I added - clearly not understanding the
point my friend was trying to make! - that a historical approach, strictly
speaking, would never work. The further back in history the more we prefer and
value a contemporary approach. Just think of a Greek tragedy performed the way
it was on the antique stage!)
Hi
Barbara,
Now I
reworked the following thought four times – too much thinking ;-)
At first
I wanted to object to the notion of a “correct” interpretation, but you are
right – my idea was an attempt to rid the play of the “Holocaust ballast” and
restore its original, “innocent”, anti-semitism (how that sounds …), but of
course my idea was just ONE direction where we could go with the play. Just
because I am bored with the established interpretation, and we can get at the
good versus bad part only by leaving out “the Jew”. I am always looking for
something like this because there is an established interpretation for almost every play which I am usually just bored with. (Hamlet and the surveillance
society, Macbeth in the business world …)
(There is again a stellar synopsis of what is “wrong”
with playing “The Merchant of Venice” as well as what is generally “wrong” with
playing Shakespeare today. But I disagree about the “cure” … To GET RID OF THE
JEW(!) to be able to shed the Holocaust and restore the original meaning of the
play appears to me even worse than the RSC’s misguided attempt to “castrate”
Caliban. (As I wrote: Caliban isn’t really important but, I think, Shylock is!)
(Another possibility would be NOT to perform this play anymore – this possibility
was already implied in what I came to like about the RSC’s production. But, as
I (and I am sure everybody else!) found out in the end: it would be such a
pity!!!) To be specified …)
I wonder
if Shakespeare really was a great actor? He certainly didn’t play the important
characters, rather someone like the ghost of Hamlet’s father. He probably even
was a bad actor who was just permitted to play because he wrote great plays
(but this is just my own thinking)
By the
way, Irmi and I saw a Greek tragedy (Oedipus Rex) by the NT, performed in the
antique style: with masques, and the actors just standing there, reciting the
text. I didn’t have a clue who was who from beginning to end. It really was
just for the archaeologists. Still I would like to travel back there in a time
machine and see a performance of Shakespeare live – just to see what it was
about for the people back then (again: the correct interpretation …). But I
don’t think I would get it because the timeframe would still be missing.
(This also is an important issue of HOW MUCH of
a text only exists because of the context/timeframe. I would go as far as to
say that not only WE understand next to nothing when we see the Greek tragedy
performed “correctly”, but I bet that the ancient Greek travelling here in a
time machine wouldn’t have a clue about what these people were doing – even if
they performed it in ancient Greek! But, surprisingly, I really EXPERIENCED
this phenomenon only once: when I attended a class about Ovid’s “Metamorphoses”
and NOBODY had the faintest what might be the point of these texts – from
beginning to end! In every other case I somehow “substituted” my own context,
mostly, I am sure, without even noticing it. In a way, something like this is
the extreme “proof” for the “existence” and singular nature of a text. Being
entirely dependent on context, it still cannot “disappear” if it isn’t
physically destroyed. We still “have” Greek tragedies, and theories about what
their point was – and, basically, it’s the same with Shakespeare. There is a
lot about it we still understand - or think we understand!? – but sometimes to
“retrieve” the historical context is crucial – as, in the case of “The Merchant
of Venice”, the original “comedy” context of the play. Without it, we actually
“get trapped” in the Holocaust …)
Hi
Claudia,
Yesterday
I noticed that I have been running about all week long (…), and thought: am I
crazy to try and read Shakespeare on top of all that?, but then I noticed that
it was exactly what I needed. Some people do yoga or whatever to get centered,
for me it is thinking about something new or fascinating that has nothing to do
with the madness “outside”(better still, of course: together with somebody
else!).
I
believe that I have finally understood what you mean. It isn’t about the
CORRECT interpretation (historically or whatever) but about an interpretation
that is not boring, that can make the play available to a contemporary
audience. At least this is something which I am always concerned with, but
haven’t dealt with explicitly. And it is probably much more important than to
try to determine about right or wrong, but, as you said yourself, there is
always both. I suppose we both want to UNDERSTAND the text not just assimilate
it in a primitive way. (The way it is usually done in the German theatre where
the directors just force THEIR OWN meaning on ANY text.) As this appears
meaningless and boring to me I have two criteria I observe to determine if an
interpretation is right or wrong. The first one is THE TEXT: what we do with it
must be based on the text, and the quality of an interpretation is, in my
opinion, proportional to the intensity of exchange with the text.
(And HERE is, I think, the point where we MUST
disagree, and where the difference of our Shakespeare “socialization” - me
being mostly a “text person”, not a “theatre person” - becomes apparent: The
NEWNESS of an interpretation as such, for me, is NO criterion of its quality.
It is crucial for the theatre, though, because there is the FACT of two or three
significant productions of “Julius Caesar” or “Lear” just in London in one
season, and every few years there is a new production of one or the other play
by the RSC, and they still make sense and are mostly good. So, if there was one
correct interpretation everybody agrees on, that would become really boring.
There definitely is an issue to be specified later, I think by the recent
example of the National Theatre’s and the RSC’s “Julius Caesar”. I obviously
uphold the opinion that there are parts of the text that cannot be changed or
dismissed without taking “the point” out of it, but there are certainly very
different METHODS of exchange and creatively dealing with the text.)
Second:
Even though it is never possible to retrieve the HISTORICAL CONTEXT completely
(or understand it completely!) it is part of the text and must be part of any
interpretation. Often, I think, much of it is contained in the text anyway –
for example in “The Merchant of Venice”: how people ACTUALLY dealt with minorities
at the time …
(For one thing: they DIDN’T put them into camps
and kill them.)
(…)So,
it is the most important thing not to “override” or get rid of the historical
context. In this respect I find it extremely important to state that the play
has NOTHING AT ALL to do with the Holocaust. Not historically anyway, but also
not, in my opinion, from the point of view of an interesting interpretation.
Even if some people still don’t want to see it: we live now in the 21st
century, and the Holocaust is no longer part of the socialization and
experience of most people. I rather had a problem with the brutal way to deal
with minorities and the political incorrectness of sanctioning that. I have no
doubt, though, that Shakespeare, as a person, had no problem with spitting at
Jews and forcing them to convert, but as he always becomes so interested in his
“villains”, Shylock’s perspective often gets the upper hand to a degree that it
is just a small step to turn the play around (as the film with Al Pacino
shows!) And I find it extremely interesting as well how critical he is of the
Christian characters, to what degree he shows them as hypocrits, and grossly
unsympathetic. There is so much to invite us to read between the lines and, in
the end, there emerges an Elizabethan Society that strikes me as so much more
“modern” as the historical picture I had of it. (In fact, it’s almost like “Wolf
Hall” …!) The time really must have been “out of joint”. Very little actually
is as it SHOULD be within the Christian Society.
(In this
context your question if the play could be performed without Shylock being a
Jew acquires new meaning. I could imagine a “Shakespeare Retold” where Shylock
isn’t a Jew but, say, a Pakistani shopkeeper who has become rich and is envied
by his neighbours … or something like this. I wouldn’t try to do it with the
Shakespeare text, though!)
(A paragraph about “Shakespeare Retold” and why
a text ABOUT a text can, in my experience, be the best adaptation of the text
is definitely in order … Fits into the context about different methods of dealing
with a historical text.)
I don’t
have a clue about what an actor Shakespeare was. It certainly wasn’t his main
occupation. Maybe this is naïve, but I have always pictured him as somebody who
didn’t just care for the business and provide the plays. Rather as some kind of
“director” who oversaw the correct adaptation of his plays. Who wrote his plays
for a certain theatre, for a certain company, and certain actors whom he
pictured playing his Hamlet or Lear. That the plays were partly written “on the
stage”, maybe even changed when the actors noticed that people wouldn’t go for
it. - As you said: the time machine! I take it that it wouldn’t work because we
would have so much to do with the stink and the dirt, and what is fit to eat and
drink in order not to fall ill, and so on that we would never be able to enjoy
a performance at the Globe. Pity!
Cheers
Barbara
(I can’t believe it that I never gave Claudia
the 3rd series of Doctor Who – where David Tennant as the Doctor and
Freema Ageyman meet Shakespeare, see a performance at the Globe, and encounter
“the witches”. Shame on me, I’ll do this on the first occasion!)
Good
morning,
You have summed
up my thoughts perfectly! Exactly what I meant – it is about adding a lot of
ideas/finding different starting-points to get an interesting interpretation
which might be based only on one aspect of the play. If it is an important
aspect it can support a whole production.
(Thank you for this crystal-clear definition!
It made me aware how much I am thinking about if I agree or disagree with this
kind of interpretation. I mostly disagree, obviously, but I just had a “flash”
about how much this has to do with my own, as I think I called it “sexual” way
of reading, and how weird it probably is … and how much THIS has to do with my
insane gratification when I could see that somebody tried to read the text THE
WAY I DID!)
But,
yes!, the text has to be the basis, thence my question if it could be played
without Shylock being a Jew. If not, a “Shakespeare Retold” in the way you
propose would be the thing to show the aspect of dealing with minorities in
more detail, not just as anti-semitism – to show what problems we have nowadays
with this issue. Whereas it was absolutely legitimate, I think, immediately
after the Holocaust, to make this the centre of a production.
(I just make a note that I still disagree (even
though it was my own proposal?!!!), especially with the last sentence. Right
now I would really like to have the extended explanation of David Suchet of WHY
he thought it important that Shylock is a Jew. (As far as I remember, he just
stated it.) I think we both agreed that he really “got” Shylock, and I know
that, somehow, his relationship with his character contains the answer. I feel
that I am on the brink of understanding, and, apart from the David Suchet
memory, it was the surprising “Julius Caesar” by the RSC that helped me on the
way. I am still kind of stunned about HOW MUCH and how successfully these
actors tried to BE Roman.)
I would
have no scruples, though, to sacrifice one or two sentences to be able to make
“my” production. For example, in the closet scene I would have to lose one
sentence to make “my” point that Gertrude is the one who planned all this and
is fooling everybody (even though she loves her son). Unlike you, I am not so
much text driven as plot driven. But, basically, I agree that it is wrong to
make a production explicitly “against” the text.
(I think I don’t disagree with this – though I
probably wouldn’t agree with the interpretation of Gertrude. It is, of course,
one of the most fascinating things how PLAYING a scene might change its meaning
completely even if it is the text we think we have been reading. This is
something I remember to have observed explicitly about the “closet scene”.) I
also noticed, though, as I wrote in one of my “Merchant of Venice” posts, that
a single sentence can in fact change the meaning of a whole story-line, and, rather
than bother with the Holocaust, I wondered how many and which sentences of
Shylock would have to be dropped when the play was produced in Germany during
the Third Reich!? I picture what was left as a very poor and dull - and rather horrid
- version of the play … - I don’t object categorically to leaving out text. The
important thing is, though, to KNOW why “we” are doing it. And I will probably
come to explain why I would be very careful about leaving out text I DON’T
UNDERSTAND …)
I think
as well that Shakespeare worked on his plays on the stage. As I probably
already mentioned, I understood this on the occasion of the nurse in “Romeo and
Juliet” telling the story about the little Julia who fell face down, not on her
back, as a grown-up girl would. There were people laughing at this, and the
nurse just told the story a second time. I checked right away if the story is
in fact repeated in the text – and it is!
Just
because of something like this the Globe is invaluable (I remember the
discussions about the Globe just being some kind of Disney for theatre nerds.
No, it isn’t!)
(I TOTALLY AGREE!!!)
About
the time machine: I never think about the stink, the food, and the language
barrier – all this would be no problem for a good time machine ;-)
(The team of “Doctor Who” think so tool, but I
am afraid they can’t afford to bother with trivia like this, having to focus on
telling great stories on a TV budget. I have never really trusted them on this
… ;-) )
A
beautiful Friday the 13th, a beautiful weekend, and I am looking
forward to Monday!
Cheers
Claudia
(That I did too! We had planned to see “Julius Caesar” by the
National Theatre, and there hadn’t been any Shakespeare in the Cinema for what
feels like a year – but, as usual, I couldn’t have imagined how good it would
be. As usual, we stood at the entrance of the underground for about twenty
minutes and disagreed about a lot of things – agreeing completely at the same
time about how much we had liked it!)
