Excruciating enough, in fact, that she takes radical steps to distance herself from him. He’s made his fortune letting ducats at interest, and just about every character onstage damns and abuses him for it-including his daughter, Jessica, who, as played here by Phoebe Pryce (yes, Jonathan’s daughter), seems to find her very proximity to him excruciating. Shylock is, of course, the iconic Jewish moneylender.
The Globe staging, however, offers a fierce, smart, cunning rebuttal to Frank’s contention that the only correct response is therefore to pluck it. The idea that Shakespeare may be singlehandedly responsible for the survival of hoary slanders against Jews seems mighty peculiar, but Frank is right about one thing: The Merchant of Venice is anti-Semitic, not just in its language but in its structural bones. “Every time it is produced,” Frank writes, “the play introduces new audiences to vile medieval tropes of anti-Semitism that might otherwise have dissipated over time.” The latest version turned up in the Chicago Tribune on August 4, the day Jonathan Pryce opened as Shylock in a touring production of the play produced by London’s Shakespeare’s Globe and presented at Chicago Shakespeare Theater.Īgreeing with Harold Bloom that Shakespeare’s 1598 romance is a “profoundly anti-Semitic work,” Frank argues that it’s “time to say ‘never again’ to this historical aberration,” apparently in the interests of social hygiene. Consider Steven Frank, a lawyer whose attack on The Merchant of Venice has been bouncing around the Internet, in various drafts, for a while. There are always people ready to pluck out what offends them. Best of Chicago 2022: Sports & RecreationĪnd if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out.Best of Chicago 2022: Music & Nightlife.Get your Best of Chicago tickets! Ticket prices go up May 15 > Close
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