One Dustin Hoffman Show I Won’t See
By Michael Kaufman
Dustin Hoffman has been a favorite actor of mine ever since I saw The Graduate in 1967. His performance in Rain Man ranks as one of the greatest pieces of acting in cinema history. He was magnificent as Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman on Broadway in 1987. (I had orchestra seats for that one.)
But I passed up the opportunity to see him play Shylock in Merchant of Venice for free in Central Park during the summer and I will not pay to see it on Broadway now either. I wish he hadn’t taken the part. I wish the New York Shakespeare Festival had chosen another of the Bard’s great works for Central Park this year and that it was so successful they took it to Broadway. But not Merchant of Venice.
“One would have to be blind, deaf and dumb not to recognize that Shakespeare’s grand, equivocal comedy The Merchant of Venice is nevertheless a profoundly anti-Semitic work,” wrote Harold Bloom, literary scholar and critic. This is spelled out in detail in Morris U. Schappes’ pamphlet, Shylock and Anti-Semitism, originally published in 1962 and later reissued by Jewish Currents magazine. As Jonathan Freedland wrote of the 2004 movie version with Al Pacino as Shylock, “There is no getting away from it: Shylock is the villain, bent on disproportionate vengeance. Crucially, his villainy is not shown as a quirk of his own, individual personality, but is rooted overtly in his Jewishness.”
Shakespeare depicted Shylock as “obsessed by money, a man who dreams of moneybags, whose very opening words are ‘three thousand ducats.’ When his daughter betrays him and flees with a Christian lover, it is her theft of his money which is said to trouble him as much as the loss of a child,” said Freedland.
“As the dog Jew did utter in the streets/’My daughter! O my ducats! O my daughter!’ ”
Shakespeare, added Freedland, “is dealing here not with a specific trait of Shylock the man but an anti-Semitic caricature.”
Similarly, Shylock’s demand for revenge (“An eye for an eye …) plays on the ancient notion of the Jews as vengeful people. A Jew seeking Christian flesh stirs memories of the anti-Semitic “blood libel,” that Jews use Christian blood for religious ritual. “Above all,” wrote Freedland “it evokes the accusation that fuelled two millennia of European anti-Semitism—that the Jews killed Christ.”
Both Schappes and Freedland point out that Shylock’s villainy is depicted as a specifically Jewish villainy. “And by our holy Sabbath have I sworn/To have the due and forfeit of my bond.” And both reject the notion often put forward by the play’s defenders that the anti-Semitism is trumped by Shylock’s poignant and humanizing “Hath not a Jew eyes…” speech. When Christian characters in the play behave badly, it is because they are not living up to and honoring their Christian faith. However, when Shylock acts badly, says Freedland, “Shakespeare suggests he is fully in accordance with Jewish tradition. Shylock plots Antonio’s downfall with his friend Tubal, promising to continue their dark talk ‘at our synagogue.’”
By the time Shylock makes his renowned speech, it evokes little sympathy. Indeed, says Freedland, it turns out to be an “over-clever” defense by Shylock of his own bloodlust—an argument that, since Jews are the same as Christians, he is entitled to exact the same revenge they would.”
None of this is to suggest that those involved in staging the play in Central Park or in bringing it to Broadway are anti-Semitic. Many, including Hoffman, are Jewish. Their view of the world, from the culturally diverse arts scene in Manhattan, might well assume that their audiences are free of such antiquated prejudice. In that context, says Freedland, “stories of anti-Jewish hatred take on an almost allegorical quality—as if they are not about Jews at all, but are, instead, parables for racism or intolerance in general.
“This might work if Shylock was, say, an Inca, or a Minoan—if, in other words, the Jews were no longer around. But Jews are still around—and so, unfortunately, is anti-Semitism.”
Michael can be reached at Michael@zestoforange.com.
Tags: Michael Kaufman
September 10th, 2010 at 9:14 pm
It’s interesting that you wrote about anti-Semitism at a time when the United States is aflame with feelings about Islam. And while Rosh Hashanah has just begun, Ramadan has just ended. Freedland cites the accusation that “the Jews killed Christ.” Yet Jesus, himself, was a Jew. Muslim terrorists took down the WTC, yet how many of those innocents who were killed on Sept. 11 were Muslim? Just some observations that crossed my mind.
September 11th, 2010 at 7:02 pm
Thanks for sharing your observations, Lee. I see a connection between the present-day anti-Muslim hysteria and the viirulent anti-Semitism that continues to be directed against Jews. I think you will also find this comment from Larry Bush, editor of Jewish Currents magazine, thought provoking: “Notwithstanding widespread rumors in the Arab world that the Israeli Mossad was responsible for the 9/11 attacks and that Jews had received ‘advance warning,’ between 300 and 400 Jews were among the nearly 3,000 victims of Al Qaeda’s attack on the World Trade Center…. Some 60 Muslims also died in the attack. In the nine-year aftermath, the United States of America has wounded itself grievously with costly, unnecessary wars, policies of torture, a loss of civil liberties, a wave of xenophobia, and a general degradation of its reputation and capacities that Osama bin Laden could not possibly have anticipated.”
September 16th, 2010 at 7:48 pm
Much of life is pre-packaged experience of others; in other word limited views built upon tradition and fear. Marlowe’s “Jew of Malta” is often used in Elizabethan courses to contrast with Shakespeare’s “Merchant of Venice.” You feel that presenting the play today in essence reinforces prejudice while I feel it reveals what anger and hyprocisy i creates it. It is up to the director and actors to interpret. Hence it is the right of passage for great stars to bring a new insight to a work along with the director.
Years ago I taught the play in college and had the class engage in the differing views and presentations. Since I have not seen the production, I cannot say what the opportunity offered Hoffman.
Jews were limited in what occupations they could engage; one was lending money. There is a hypocrisy in the Christians using the Jews to do what they were forbidden to do in Christianity, charging interest. The very essence of the Elizabethan plays was to use contrast. The intolerance is reflected in the more performed “Romeo and Juliet.”
The American public is more intolerant now as you point out in your response. The famous lines, “The quality of mercy is not strained. It is the mightiest in the mightiest and becomes becomes the throned monarch more than his crown…” is contrasted with how merciful the Christians are not themselves when they have created the limited and demeaning life for the Jews. Christians have created the stereotype. But his daughter is the possibility for a new.
Just as every major character offers us a view of what could have been, there are those moments in life just as “Can’t we just get along” that have come in the news.
Once my brother-in-law created a print of ants for a show on “Windows” as its theme. I thought it was repulsive and it was the only one of his prints that failed to be sold. Noting that, I was surprised to hear his response. “I got you to react.”
Your writing does that too. Good show!