By which I mean the Shakespeare play, not an actual tradesman from Venezia.
Suppose you’re running a theater in Nazi Germany. If you put on a faithful adaptation of The Merchant of Venice and the Gestapo turned up, would they be saying “Ah, showing the shifty Jews for what they’ve always been, gut gemacht!” or “Hmm, so Jews will ‘revenge’ and can atone by becoming Christian? Kommen sie mit mir…”
I’ve JFGI and the references I can find so far indicate that the Nazis appropriated the character of Shylock and exaggerated his villainy, quelle surprise, but if you performed the play 100% faithfully would you be in the shit?
I found a reference to a production of the Merchant of Venice in 1943 in Vienna directed by Lothar Müthel which was described as an “antisemitic caricature”.
Off on a tangent, I’m reminded of the film To Be Or Not To Be (first made in 1942 starring Jack Benny and later remade by Mel Brooks) about a theatre company in Nazi-occupied Warsaw. The film features an actor who delivers Shylock’s soliloquy directly to Hitler (sort of) at one point.
It’s a relatively mild farce by itself but when you consider that it was released in 1942 when Nazis were actively killing Jews in Warsaw it’s startlingly bold.
It’s sometimes hard to imagine the fear that people lived under during the height of the Third Reich. People would be grabbed off the street for relatively minor infractions and never seen again. I think that artists were watched carefully to ensure they weren’t saying or doing anything against the propaganda that was being disseminated. Given the risk of upsetting someone who had the power to destroy both you and your family I would think artists were very careful not to offend the authorities.
Oh, I agree that’s more appropriate. It’s just that when I see an acronym like that it’s usually pejorative implied (“why are you asking when you could have googled?”)
I know it was performed in the Jewish Theater in Kharkov in 1925, and there was a 1980 Chinese production that was controversial because two characters kissed on stage, which some people thought was morally offensive. In fact, according to Murray Levith’s "Shakespeare in China:
Actually some German translations of the 18th/19th century e.g. Schiller’s translation of Macbeth are classics in their own right. The Deutsche Shakespeare-Gesellschaft, founded in 1864, is older than any Anglosphere Shakespeare societies AFAIK. Shakespeare can reasonably be regarded as one of the most notable German playwrights.
WRT The Merchant Of Venice, the German language sites referring to productions in 1933-1945 12, 3 , even with, in 1937, a special performance on the occasion of the propaganda exhibition Der ewige Jude. 4 cites contemporary theatre criticism, in the Völkischer Beobachter among others, approving of anti-semitic performance of he Shylock character.
In my opinion the OP is too charitable to Shakespeare and his times in assuming a ‘faithful adaption’ of The Merchant of Venice is necessarily non-antisemitic. If anything it’s hard work to have Shylock not be an anti-semitic caricature. His famous soliloquy can easily be cast as the self-serving pleading of a villain.
Not wishing in any way to depict the Third Reich as a humane and tolerant polity; but in general reading, I have come across suggestions that the situation there in this respect, was less extreme than suggested above – that being maybe a more accurate description of the Soviet Union at Stalin’s peak times of paranoia. Can’t give cites, I’m afraid – maybe something I recall from Solzhenitsyn, but he can be something less than fully balanced, a propos the Soviet area in his country.
I get the picture that repression in Hitler’s Germany was at any rate, more consistent and, within its context, rational: certain groups and ideas were strongly targeted, but people unaffected thereby – including artists – were usually left alone if they did nothing in word or deed, downright outrageous to the authorities. One would reckon, admittedly, that any work of art showing Jews / Jewry in a positive light; would likely have, thus, been found outrageous.
As I understand it Germany has a reasonable claim as being the country that first fully appreciated Shakespeare. Certainly Shakespeare’s jump in reputation occured in Germany at around the same time, if not earlier, than in Britain.
Is MOV anti-semitic? To our modern eyes almost certainly, yes. However, it is problematic enough to allow for other readings. The fact that it needs to be variously cut(and interpreted) by anti-semites, pro-semites, liberals, conservatives, reactionaries and communists suggests it is not black & white. Just as Henry V is cut to read either as an anti-war play or a pro-war play.
This fits what I’ve been reading. The scenario in the OP wouldn’t generally lead to arrests per se. But if the authorities had a grudge with the director, producer, or players (say, for public criticism or the Reich), then the Gestapo might decide to use the depiction of Shylock as a pretense to bring the offending person in for interrogation.
I thank you all for your replies, particularly the ones on specific performances of the play at the time.
Good point, although not all antisemitism is necessarily of the same stripe, hence wondering if the antisemitism of Shakespeare’s day meshed with Hitler’s own particularly deranged and vitriolic brand of it. I imagine being publicly ‘off-message’ on Jews would be met with a discreet visit from the Geheime Staatspolizei.
As I understand it, the anti semitism in the 16th century would have been more akin to the casual racism in Britain in the 60s and 70s. They were villains because they were different and because many people owed them money, not because they were considered an inferior race.
Antisemitism in Shakespeare’s day was purely theoretical: Jews had been expelled from England in 1290 and weren’t allowed back until 1657. It’s quite possible he never met one, and any antisemitism was pretty attenuated.
