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Shakespearean Expert Presents Judaic Studies Lecture
Barry Edelstein, director of the Shakespeare Initiative at the Public Theater in New York City, presented “Staging Hatred on Broadway: Shylock, Shakespeare and ‘The Merchant of Venice,’” at the University on Nov. 17.
Barry Edelstein, the celebrated director of the Shakespeare Initiative at the Public Theater in New York City, presented “Staging Hatred on Broadway: Shylock, Shakespeare and ‘The Merchant of Venice,’” at The University of Scranton on Nov. 17.
Although many of Shakespeare’s plays depict Jewish characters negatively, Edelstein argued in his lecture that these works are not necessarily anti-Semitic. In fact, they attest to how far our society has come in regard to race relations.
Edelstein used his current Broadway production of “The Merchant of Venice,”famously starring Al Pacino, as an example of this concept.
In “The Merchant of Venice,” Shylock is a Jewish moneylender who is forced to convert to Christianity after a series of dramatic events. This forced conversion was described as “bigoted Christian triumphalism and stomach-turning in its anti-Semitic bluntness” by Edelstein. This scene, along with others from “Macbeth” and “Much Ado about Nothing,” serve as examples of negative depictions of Jews in works of Shakespeare.
However, modern theatergoers should not be offended by this portrayal. Edelstein argues that context is key when interpreting this negativity. Shakespeare’s casual use of Jew as a synonym for evil was entirely conventional for the time period.
“A revival of a Shakespeare play 400 years after it was written should tell us not that Shakespeare was some kind of transhistorical genius who anticipated and recorded every great social moment in world culture, hundreds of years before they happened,” said Edelstein.
These plays should show us the exact and precise ways in which the world has changed since Shakespeare was alive, he explained. They should prove the progressive nature of our society; that in this modern era, society no longer harbors these misconceptions of the Jewish culture.
“Hatred destroys. Staging it heals,” said Edelstein.
