Abstract
On the anniversary of the 1936 Battle of Cable Street, and only two days after Suella Braverman's speech to the Conservative Party Conference warning of a ‘hurricane’ of mass migration coming to the UK, there could hardly have been a more appropriate time to view this production. The decision to stage a play regularly condemned as anti-Semitic within the context of the rise of British fascism in the 1930s allowed the audience to draw their own comparisons with current issues of racial and religious prejudice. To this end, the text was heavily cut, without losing any of the major strands within the play. The casting of Tracy-Ann Oberman as Shylock and Jessica Dennis as her Irish Catholic servant, here re-named as Mary Gobbo, clutching her rosary beads as she contemplated leaving ‘this Jew my master’ (2.2.2), generated further intriguing gendered and religious tensions.
The production opened with cast members distributing small glasses of grape juice to selected audience members with exhortations not to drink until after an onstage blessing. This blessing was delivered by Shylock to both the audience and a small group of friends gathered around a table within her drab and sparsely furnished home for the Shabbat meal. Her daughter, Jessica (Gráinne Drumgoole), was seated alone at a clerk's desk, wearing an equally drab school uniform. Both her naiveté and the lack of a true connection with her mother helped explain her willingness to turn her back on family and religion to flee with Lorenzo (Priyank Morjaria). A back projection saw Nazi insignia begin to replace the original Jewish religious symbols as the diners left abruptly and Raymond Coulthard removed his yarmulke to re-appear at another, more richly furnished, table, as Antonio. Throughout the production, it was stressed that it was the upper classes who had founded and driven the actions of the Union of British Fascists.
On the almost bare Swan stage (see Bethan Mary Davies’s review of this production staged at Wilton’s East Music Hall in this section), these class distinctions were indicated by the lowering of an elaborate crystal chandelier whenever members of Antonio's coterie appeared and during scenes set at Belmont. Where Hannah Morrish's Portia's sympathies lay was clearly demonstrated as she entered like a Mitford socialite, wearing jodhpurs that echoed Mosley's uniform, to the sound of the hunting horn. The chandelier was also flown in during Shylock's trial, and the hunting horn resounded again as Shylock was mockingly ‘baptised’ a Christian by Graziano (Xavier Starr) throwing a glass of water in her face and mockingly making the sign of the cross. Earlier, the drunken Graziano had staggered boorishly around the stage like an early member of the Bullington Club, viciously spitting out the word ‘Jew’ with increasing vehemence and relieving himself against the front of a Jewish pawn shop.
The back projections of anti-Semitic graffiti were replaced by newsreel film of Mosley's Blackshirts marching, and a drunken Graziano approached Shylock's house draped in the Union flag as a reworking of Land of Hope and Glory's lyric reverberated round the auditorium. The programme reprinted these lyrics that were written on House of Commons notepaper the day after war was declared on Germany: Land of dope and Jewry / Land that once was free / All the Jew boys Praise thee / Whilst they plunder thee.
The casket scene was truncated but still retained the lazy racism demonstrated by Portia. The Prince of Morocco was replaced in this production by a Maharajah (Priyank Morjaria) but the line ‘Let all of his complexion chose me so’(2.7.78) was retained, whilst Portia's contemptuous description of the English suitor, Lord Faulconbridge was cut. Coultard's arrogant Prince of Aragon was dismissed just as quickly, while Bassanio's successful choice of casket was less than subtly guided by both Nerissa (Jessica Dennis) and Portia herself.
Shylock's appearance in court was presented as nothing less than a show trial. The word ‘Jew’ was uttered with emphatic contempt by all the Christians present, while Antonio appeared in full British Union of Fascist regalia, complete with jackboots and the Fascist insignia prominent on his armband. He was greeted warmly by all, including the judge, whilst Shylock stood alone, dignified and unbowed, before them. Portia's ‘quality of mercy’ speech was presented here as an ironic perversion of the text, and Graziano's reaction to the verdict was just another instance of the violent hatred demonstrated in the final scene of the production. At one point, the court having found in Shylock's favour, the parties made to leave upstage as though to an operating theatre where Antonio would have the flesh removed. Part of Portia's reversal was in preventing this exit and passing Shylock a sharp blade that she received with horror at the realisation that she’d have to do her own cutting. (All the earlier speeches about Shylock whetting his knife had been omitted.) It was here that Shylock realised the true barbarity of her own contract as well as that of the Christian state. Morrish's Portia was unusually sadistic and relished the defeat and humiliation of Shylock.
Before the culmination, however, Shylock remained onstage, as a dispossessed refugee, to witness the proof of her contemptuous aside ‘These be the Christian husbands’ (4.1.292). The wives’ forgiveness of their husbands for having given away their rings was cut, leaving not only Jessica, but also Portia and Nerissa obviously re-considering their marital choices. The comic intrigue of Portia and Nerissa claiming to have slept with the lawyer and his clerk, before the revelation that they were the lawyer and his clerk was cut too. There was precious little to lighten the tone. In addition, Antonio's obvious love for Bassanio was clearly not reciprocated. Having gained permission to use Antonio's name to obtain credit and pay his debts, he left hurriedly, only to be called back as Antonio indicated a wish to receive a kiss on the cheek. As Bassanio leant forward to comply, Antonio turned so that the kiss would be planted on his lips. Bassanio recoiled and dashed away. There were no personal happy endings. In the final scene, Portia gave Antonio the ring to put back on Bassanio's finger: the former savoured while the latter cringed back from the public gesture of homoeroticism. It seemed as though Portia was deliberately punishing her errant husband.
These private grudges were publicly staged and seemed to intensify a larger social dysfunctionality. As the sounds of riot and mayhem broke out over more virulent anti-Semitic projections, the embattled Jews unfurled a banner reading ‘They shall not pass’, and Shylock stood powerfully downstage centre, her clenched fist defying the gathering fascists. The audience was encouraged to stand in camaraderie with them. Braced for the surge of Mosley's thugs, the small group of Jews behind a makeshift barricade of packing cases, furniture and pallets offered an image of courageous resistance. Standing with them in solidarity was the very least we could do.