Jew on stage

Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice" was first published in 1600 under the title "The most excellent story of the Merchant of Venice. With the extreme cruelty of the Jew Shylock towards the said merchant, from whom he wanted to cut exactly a pound of flesh." Let us remember that we are talking about the collateral that the moneylender Shylock assigned to the merchant Antonio in case of delay in repaying the debt. Antonio violates the terms, Shylock comes to court at the Doge's Palace with a knife and scales, a law-abiding merchant unbuttons his shirt, a triumphant moneylender sharpens his blade. Nevertheless, everything ends well - that is, good for Antonio, for Shylock it could not be worse.

After reading the play, there is no doubt who the negative hero is. Even his own daughter does not like Shylock, not to mention the author. But this author is Shakespeare. And just as Verdi in another Shakespearean work, Othello, gave the best music to the villain Iago, so in The Merchant of Venice the most heartfelt words are given to the scoundrel Shylock. The famous monologue is one of the best in world literature: “Doesn’t a Jew have eyes? Doesn’t a Jew have hands, organs, body members, feelings, affections, passions?” and so on (what a clumsy translation after all).

However, let us listen to the amazing exoticism of these words, which are now heard in Moscow from the lips of Alexander Kalyagin and Mikhail Kozakov, and sounded in New York from the lips of Dustin Hoffman (I saw this Broadway play by Peter Hall several years ago).

Who now needs to be convinced that a Jew “is warmed and cold by the same summer and winter as a Christian”? Shylock's passionate monologue these days is only appropriate in Baghdad or Krasnodar.

The performer of this classic role has no choice but to correct Shakespeare. In 1600, it was possible to write in the headline about the “extraordinary cruelty of a Jew” and show the scene of his shame with incomparable revelry: a Jew who encroached on Christian flesh was deprived of his daughter, home, fortune and even faith - forced to convert to Christianity, as if there was no worse punishment.

Four hundred years have passed since then, different things have happened, the main thing is the Holocaust. “If we are pricked, don’t we bleed? If we are poisoned, don’t we die?” Curious rhetoric after Babyn Yar and Auschwitz.

To the question - is Shylock possible after Hitler? - anyone who takes on The Merchant of Venice must answer. And then the disgusting miser takes on the features of a sufferer, driven to vengeful despair by circumstances and society. The bright Renaissance nobles from Antonio's entourage appear as a bunch of empty, cheeky playboys - New York for Hall, Moscow for Sturua. In the Broadway play, they simply spit in Hoffman's face, giving him an indulgence for retribution. The daughter of a Jew, Jessica, turns into a cynical, lustful creature. All lyrical counterpoint - necessary for philosophical volume in Shakespeare - becomes irrelevant, so Sturua completely excluded the fifth act from his production. History gave volume to The Merchant of Venice.

Shakespeare as a whole is surprisingly modern, and almost any of his plays is perceived as today's. It’s not worth even talking about psychological masterpieces - “King Lear” or “Hamlet”, which are not in vain filmed with such frequency. But the chronicles have not lost anything after four centuries. Richard III, Prince Harry, Falstaff fit into our days as if they had always been here.

But “The Merchant of Venice” convinces us that even geniuses are subject to time. The original Shylock is absurd, moreover, implausible, because Hitler corrected Shakespeare. This is sad and instructive, perhaps this is Shylock’s main lesson. We arrogantly believe that we know Homer, Ovid, Rabelais, Pushkin, but in fact we know only an idea about them, distorted by a distance of a certain number of centuries.