So, David, let's first of all get out of the way the question of the anti-semitism. Yes, well, being Jewish myself, I'd like to get it out of the way, because I remember when I was coming up to actually perform the role, I'd get letters from America, Telling me or questioning even the very fact that I was doing the role in the first place. How dare I do Shiloh, you know. And I think that we all have to be very, very careful not just to...
respond to the play in relation to the 20th century Holocaust. Yes. Patrick, what do you think? Perhaps for the first time, the last time in this program, I find myself totally in agreement with David.
The... anti-semitism the alleged anti-semitism of the play because we agree it is not an anti-semitic play it has anti-semitic elements is a distraction but I also believe that the Jewishness which is so often emphasized in the merchant is equally a distraction David's right for us in the second half of the 20th century the anti-semitic expressions in the play are going to reverberate very powerfully and the director and the actor will need to emphasize them. The reverberation will be present anyway, but you cannot avoid them and you can't underplay them.
I think, however, to concentrate on Jewishness is to avoid the great potential in the character which is his universality. I think that whenever I've seen a very ethnic, a very Jewish Shylock, I felt that something has been missing, that something has been lost from the performance. shylock is essentially an alien an outsider i think if you see him as a jew first and foremost then he's in danger of becoming only a symbol i think that shylock is an outsider who happens to be a jew would you challenge that yes i would um only insofar as that i would interpret shylock i'm an outsider not who happens to be a Jew but because I am a Jew. I think that the Jewish element in the play I think is is unavoidably very important I think this is probably where we differ in our interpretations. I'm looking forward to seeing what your Shylock is like.
Because in each of the scenes and they're not that many well in three of the scenes. I mean Shakespeare does manage to ring a bell. a wonderful change in the way that Shylock, the Jew, has a business relationship, a family relationship, how he responds to his enemies, how he responds to his friends, and also how he demonstrates the laws of the land in which he lives.
And I think also Shakespeare never forgets, never lets us, the audience, or the character forget the Jewish thing. One only has to look at the trial scene to realize that Shylock's name, even having been asked, Shylock's name, is your name shylock is my name but he's only actually called by his name shylock six times jew 22. okay well now let's dig into the part we're beginning to find already what we find everywhere with shakespeare that there's an infinite number of interpretations each actor coming to play the part has to start afresh so where does he start he'll probably begin by reacting against previous interpretations his starting point i suppose for most actors is the crucial question what did he look like how did he talk i should state here that when the part was originally offered to me my inclination was to refuse it for one principal reason which was that it seemed to me that the part was eternally stuck um in a kind of tradition a ritual about the role that if i were to play shylock then it would necessarily mean ringlets oh long, exotic, perhaps semi-oriental gowns, either shabby or decorative to taste, that there was so much traditional appearance and traditional behavior attached to the role that I could never free myself from it. I could never find a human being at the heart of that exterior, that set exterior.
So, well, as I began to read the play, of course, something else began to appear, something else began to unfold about the character, and I found that indeed there was a highly complex and very modern creation. I decided therefore that I would avoid... I enjoyed the easily recognizable symbolic elements of Jewishness, the ringlets, the gown, and the nose, and so on, although I should say that I had a very large bushy beard and a lot of long, dirty, tangly hair. And I wore a shabby, dirty, broken-down frock coat. because I think that the most important thing for Shylock in the play is money, possessions and finance.
Having it, therefore you're not going to waste it on how you appear, so I made an attempt to make my Shylock very shabby and down at heel. As for the voice... One thing influenced me. Shylock is living in a strange culture, an alien culture. I think that in order to survive it's necessary, one of the ways of surviving in an alien culture, to assimilate yourself into it.
Therefore, I gave him an accent which was more cultured, more native than the natives. So I gave him a cultured, over cultured, over refined accent, much more so than the aristocrats in the play. You see, I think...
that the foreignness in Shylock, that which is truly strange and exotic, lies in the language, not in how he appears. No one in The Merchant of Venice speaks like Shylock, not even his fellow Jew, Tubal. If you take, for instance, the Laban speech, there is so much rich and curious, bizarre use of language in that speech that that alone says foreigner. Right. So, David, what about you?
I chose everything in opposition to that. I also discovered, as you did in the language, there is a certain rhythm to the language, which I went with to the extent of even going further with the lilt and slight accent. I didn't place the accent in any particular area at all, but I wanted to make it foreign. with the language that was foreign, because I felt that was important. I never wanted anybody to forget that I was an outsider from that point of view.
And it's something that I felt Shylock would not have tried to alter, because my Shylock was very proud of his Jewishness. And why hide it? Exploit it where necessary, if necessary, which I think he does in the first scene. Isn't that... that dangerous exploiting it isn't that no i don't think so because i think i i well i think it's human that human behavior but i think also my my dress if i can just say um was smart um because yes motivation money absolutely agree but uh with those that he deals with he asks what news on the realto the stock exchange banking money i think that he would dress according to uh the status that he believes he has yes as director of the play each time i found both those images totally acceptable totally consistent with the text there's never one answer one always keeps feeling that i was as totally convinced by the ones by the other but we've gone through the preliminaries we should start to dig into the play itself so what about this famous part that's only got five scenes the scenes are the scenes are all different did you find that yes every scene has its own characteristics yes i i found one dominant motivation, one dominant objective for the whole play, which I've already stated, was that of money, finance and possessions.
And just to briefly come back to the Jewish question again, whenever Shylock is given a choice between race and religion or financial security, commerce, business, he always makes the commercial choice. There are scores of, I hate him for he's a Christian, but more for that inlosing simplicity, he lends out money gratis. He hath disgraced me, yes. His disgraced Jewishness. And hindered me half a million.
Always it is the commercial which comes second. Why, there, there, there, he says, when his daughter has been taken away from him. A diamond gone. Not a daughter gone, but a diamond gone. So that was the dominant motivation.
But allowing for that, that being the driving element of the play, then I think it's necessary to isolate the quality and the motivation in each scene. Yes, when studying the part, it's always a terrifying thing. thing with anything like Shylock or those roles because of the history of how it's been played, as you say, mostly black or white. I suppose what I was desperate to try and do was to look at that play without preconception and to look at each scene for exactly what it was, for what it said to me, and to play that and to play the sometimes the inconsistencies of each and just to see what happened.
if I just went with the scene without overlaying something that I had worked out before. Right. Terrific. With the belief that if you play all of the inconsistencies, when the final inconsistency is slotted into place like a piece in a jigsaw puzzle, then you will no longer have an inconsistency, but a complete and wonderfully colourful and complex whole. So it's as though little doors open throughout.
Terrific. Terrific. Insanity.
Instead of getting all the consistencies, putting them apart, stirring them up, making a blend of them, and playing the blend from the beginning of the play to the end. Well, that's time. Blast a cannon. Well, now then, nowhere to go.
We must have a look now at it scene from scene, otherwise we will...