The Merchant of Venice
The fall of 2007 will also feature the American Players Theatre's production of The Merchant of Venice on November 1 at the Fox Cities PAC. The overlapping issues of otherness, tolerance, diversity, and family relationships in The Tempest and The Merchant of Venice will link the two plays, as well as the workshops and activities surrounding them. The Merchant of Venice, like The Tempest, considers bigotry in the treatment of one group of people by another. In The Merchant of Venice, the differences are both religious and ethnic. Europeans have shaped a social structure that barely tolerates the Jews who are allowed to remain in the midst of the Venetian state, perhaps for purposes of trade and money-lending alone The dominant society’s treatment of “otherness” is exposed and to a large extent challenged by the figure of Shylock.
Complete edition of the play, courtesy of Renascence Editions
Overview of the Play
Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice is a love story, but it is also a play about a conflict between Jews and Christians engaged in lending and trade. Since Jews were evicted from England in 1290 under Edward IV, Shakespeare had probably never knowingly met a Jew, although there was a highly-charged and rather hysterical outbreak of anti-Semitism launched when one of Elizabeth’s physicians, Roderigo Lopez, a Portuguese Jewish convert, was charged with attempted murder of the queen. There were other converted Jews living in England at the time, many of them practicing their forbidden religion while conforming to laws that everyone had to attend the Church of England. When Shakespeare was writing, there was a large Jewish ghetto in Venice on an island and the bridges to the island were blocked to enforce curfews at certain times–either raised or gated. Jews were not allowed to practice most professions, but they were allowed to become bankers of a sort through money-lending because Christians were not allowed by their religion–or by law–to lend money for interest. It was considered usury. So when Christian merchants needed to borrow money, they had to go to the Jews, and they resented every penny of interest they had to pay. In other words, they stigmatized Jews for doing the only thing they were allowed to do.
The play is not concerned with kings and kingdoms, but with three groups of people: merchants of Venice, Jews, and citizens of Belmont. As in many of Shakespeare’s comedies, there is a double plot, one centered in Venice around the merchant Antonio and the money-lender Shylock, and one centered in Belmont around the lovers Bassanio and Portia. A sub-plot concerns Shylock’s daughter Jessica and the Christian she loves, Lorenzo. The two main plots come together in Venice when Bassanio leaves Belmont to be at Antonio’s side when Shylock demands payment of his bond, a pound of flesh, and when Portia leaves Belmont for Venice in order to defend and save Antonio.
In the Antonio/Shylock plot, we learn early that Antonio despises Jews, especially Shylock, and Shylock hates gentiles, especially Antonio. The only reason Antonio would do business with Shylock is his desire to help Bassanio in his desire to try his luck in a kind of lottery or game of chance to win Portia, an heiress who has enough money to pay Bassanio’s debts and allow him to live as he wants to live (I get the impression that Antonio would help Bassanio in almost any cause). Bassanio has visited Belmont and met Portia in the past and seems to have felt some attraction for her. Shylock is willing to help Antonio because it is a chance to gain power over him. Since Bassanio has no credit and Antonio’s ready cash is tied up in investments, particularly in shipping, Antonio sends Bassanio to use his credit to get a loan from Shylock. The bond Shylock demands as if in jest is a pound of flesh. When Bassanio gets the money, he goes immediately to try his luck for Portia.
This allows the action to move to Belmont where life has a more leisurely pace apart from the marketplace atmosphere of Venice. We learn that the lottery for Portia has been established by her father in his will so that he can control her marriage decisions from the grave. Portia’s waiting gentlewoman, Nerissa, suggests that Portia doesn’t have to be ruled by her father since he isn’t around to see, but, although Portia protests her father’s games, she is determined to be a dutiful daughter. However, Portia wishes that a certain Venetian, Bassanio, whom she met when her father was alive, would come and try for her, and she isn’t above giving hints to the one she wants to succeed.
The lottery consists of a choice between three chests: one of lead, one of silver, and one of gold. Players determined to take a chance on Portia and her fortune have to agree to leave Belmont immediately and never marry if they make the wrong choice. We see two of Portia’s suitors make wrong decisions based on their judgements of their own worth. When Bassanio comes to try his luck, he is more interested in Portia than he is in himself, so he chooses the correct casket and wins the lady and her fortune (Portia’s musical hint might have been a factor, as well). Bassanio doesn’t just claim Portia, however; instead, he says that he will be bound by her decision. When he says that, she gives herself and all of her goods to him and symbolizes that by giving him a ring, making him vow it will never leave his finger.
Before the wedding, Lorenzo and Jessica arrive in Belmont. Jessica is accepted as Lorenzo’s wife, indicating that it isn’t ethnicity that is the problem with the Jews, but that it is religion. Jessica has repudiated her father and stolen some of his wealth to marry Lorenzo, and the two have gone on a spending spree in celebration. When Shylock hears of what they have spent he very nearly goes mad. It is difficult to know which he regrets more–his daughter or his ducats.
Also arriving in Belmont before the wedding is a message for Bassanio from Antonio telling him that his (Antonio’s) life is forfeit to Shylock because all of his ships have been lost at sea. All he wants is for Bassanio to come to Venice to see him die. Portia rushes the wedding but sends Bassanio on his way to Venice before the wedding night. Then Portia and Nerissa (who has married Bassanio’s friend Gratiano) get some legal advice and head to Venice too. Portia disguises herself as a young lawyer and Nerissa becomes her clerk.
When the case comes before the Duke, Portia agrees that Antonio’s bond is forfeit and asks for mercy from Shylock in a lovely, Christain-based speech that pits the Old Testament against the New. She asks who can receive salvation if there is no mercy. Shylock, as the representative of the Old Testament, demands the law and says that he doesn’t expect mercy (of course, he hasn’t ever had any mercy from the Christians he has dealt with, either). Bassanio offers Shylock three times the amount due if Shylock will take it, but Shylock refuses. We see that Shylock has many opportunities to relinquish his hold on Antonio, but he is determined to get revenge. When he refuses even three times what he is owed, Portia tells Antonio to ready himself for the knife, and he does. Then she tells Shylock to take his pound of flesh (I have the impression that she wants Antonio and Bassanio to suffer a bit!).
When Shylock is ready to make his cut, Portia tells him to wait–there are a few things he has to know: the bond doesn’t include blood, and it requires exactly a pound–no more, no less. If Shylock takes blood and anything but a pound, he will die. Shylock suddenly decides to accept the cash offered, but Portia tells him that door is closed. Shylock says he will accept just the amount loaned, but Portia won’t let him do that either. In fact, she says that he is an alien who has conspired to murder a citizen. Since that is the case, Shylock will forfeit his life and all of his goods. Portia tells Shylock to beg for mercy, but the Duke grants him mercy before he asks, saying that half of his goods are forfeit to Antonio, and the other half comes go the state, but if Shylock is humble, the state’s portion could be reduced to a fine.
Shylock agrees to all. Antonio says that he wants Shylock’s money for his lifetime, but that he will assign it to Lorenzo, Jessica’s husband, after Shylock’s death, if Shylock will become a Christian. The Duke makes that a condition of his mercy too. Shylock has little choice but to agree to give up his faith, and thus his profession and his friends as well. Shylock retains almost half of his goods, but at what cost?
Antonio and Bassanio are overjoyed at the outcome and offer Portia, still disguised as the lawyer, the money that Shylock wouldn’t take (it’s Portia’s, anyway). Portia says she doesn’t want the money, but she will take Antonio’s gloves, and then she asks for Bassanio’s ring–the one she gave him to symbolize her gift of herself and her fortune. Bassanio won’t give her the ring until Antonio tells him to weigh the lawyer’s accomplishments and Antonio’s love against Portia’s commandment and his promise to her. Bassanio hands over the ring. Later, Nerissa gets her ring from Gratiano as well.
From the beginning, Antonio has had a hold on Bassanio that doesn’t bode well for Portia and her marriage to Bassanio. Bassanio’s loyalty is still to Antonio rather than to his wife. When Portia fights for Antonio’s life, she is also fighting for her marriage. What would life be like if Antonio died so that Bassanio could marry Portia? He would always be a ghost between them. At the end of the play, Bassanio and Gratiano return to Belmont with Antonio. Portia asks Bassanio what happened to the ring. She and Nerissa pretend to believe that their husbands gave their rings to women and threaten that they will give their bodies just as freely to other men if they have a chance. Antonio once again offers his pledge for Bassanio, this time to honor his vows to his wife. And once again Portia allows Bassanio to suffer a bit before she reveals that she was the lawyer and Nerissa the clerk. Portia also informs Antonio that his ships, believed lost, have come safely to harbor. Then she hands the ring to Antonio and tells him to give it to Bassanio, so that, in effect, Antonio gives up his influence over Bassanio to Portia. The scene at the end could be staged to look like a wedding with Antonio playing the priest and marrying Portia and Bassanio all over again. Finally all the couples go into the house together. At this point, Antonio could be left alone on the stage to emphasize his lost friendship with Bassanio, or he could go happily into the house with the happy couples as friend to all of them.
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