Next on our stage:

HIGHLIGHTSTHE SIEGEL

MAY 17-JUNE 17

IN THE HEIGHTSJULY 12-AUGUST 19

A companion guide to

Shakespeare’s

The Merchant of Venice

directed by Kit Wilder

supported by East Coast City Lights

March 22-April 22, 2018

COMING SOON…OUR 2018-19 SEASON!

SynopsisMore than four centuries after it was first performed, The Merchant of Venice remains one of Shakespeare’s most compelling, ambivalent and controversial plays. Poised between drama and comedy, it balances precariously on the edge where the light and dark of humanity meet, and reflects the emotional turmoil of the Bard’s time, aspects of which eerily suggest the troubles that roil America today. With some of the most famous speeches and scenes in the canon, the work still challenges and fascinates.

CharactersAntonio, a merchant (Jeffrey Bracco)Bassanio, his friend, and suitor to Portia (George Psarras*)Gratiano, friend to Bassanio (Max Tachis)Solanio, a Venetian (Nick Mandracchia)Saleria, a Venetian (April Green)Lorenzo, suitor to Jessica (Jeremy Ryan)Shylock, a Jew (Brian Herndon*)Tubal, a Jew (Bezachin Jifar)The Prince of Morocco, suitor to Portia (Bezachin Jifar)The Prince of Aragon, suitor to Portia (Tom Gough)Launcelot Gobbo, servant to Shylock (Tasi Alabastro)The Duke of Venice (Tom Gough)Portia, a wealthy lady of Belmont (Maria Giere Marquis)Nerissa, her lady-in-waiting (Caitlin Papp)Jessica, daughter to Shylock (Roneet Aliza Rahamim)

*Member, Actors’ Equity Association

Shylock: A historyby Kit Wilder, director of The Merchant of Venice at City Lights

The Merchant of Venice is one of Shakespeare’s most frequently performed plays. This fact alone is enough to raise eyebrows among those who recognize the play as one of its author’s most controversial works; it often is confined to the classroom, the library or the book club—if it is not avoided there!—and kept off the stage. One can only imagine how truly popular the play might be were it not feared by so many who would otherwise produce it.

For if one overlooks the central problem of its alleged anti-Semitism, the play is rather a masterpiece: an elegant marriage of drama, comedy and romance, replete with some of the most complex and irresistible characters, compelling and stageworthy plots and sub-plots, and unforgettable speeches to be found in the canon. (Who doesn’t know, or think he knows, “The Quality of Mercy” or “Hath Not a Jew Eyes”: those “set pieces” memorized by every student, that this production attempts to “de-mystify.”)

Despite all of this, the play is indeed feared, for that central problem of anti-Semitism cannot be ignored. It is not only fundamental to any analysis and understanding—or misunderstanding—of the play by audiences and critics the world over, but it is, like it or not, fundamental to the play itself. For after all, what would Merchant be without Shylock?

Like the play, Shylock himself has held audiences and actors in thrall for over 400 years, despite, or perhaps because of, the ugliness at the play’s core. Audiences everywhere love him or hate him, and in so doing reveal much about themselves and the times in which they live. (For did Shakespeare ever write a better social, moral, and ethical barometer than Merchant?) Actors everywhere want to play him. The role is one that any actor with a certain flair for the dramatic and even a minimal awareness of his own talent simply must tackle at some point in his career.

There have been magnificent Shylocks, and there have been unspeakably bad Shylocks, but I daresay there has never been an uninteresting Shylock. Whether played for laughs as a comic villain—yes, that interpretation is promoted by some scholars today—or crafted to bring audiences to tears as a victim of unspeakable hatred and cruelty, the role is simply irresistible. His dramatic and historic significance is all the more remarkable when one remembers that he appears in only five scenes of the play!

Scholars place the writing of Merchant sometime between 1596 and 1598; the play is mentioned in the writings of churchman Francis Meres in 1598. The earliest surviving record of a performance dates from 1605, when the play was presented at the court of King James. No other record of a performance exists until 1701, when the poet/playwright George Granville adapted the play under the title The Jew of Venice—as it was sometimes known in Shakespeare’s own time. This adaptation was performed to some acclaim for the next 40 years. The Irish actor Thomas Doggett played Shylock in Granville’s production, and offered perhaps the first overtly comic interpretation of the role, one that reportedly bordered on farce.

This 1876 painting by Maurycy Gottlieb depicts Shylock with his daughter, Jessica.

George Granville’s adaptation was popular in the 1700s. Yes, a comedy.

In 1741 the play was revived in its “original” form, restoring Shakespeare’s text and presenting Shylock as vengeful and villainous. Seventy years later, the great Edmund Kean made his London debut at Drury Lane in the role. The performance made Kean’s career, and marked the first truly sympathetic interpretation of the moneylender. Kean’s Shylock stunned audiences and won critical acclaim. In heralding the actor’s arrival on the London stage as Shylock, one writer acknowledged “the advent—nay, the portent—of Edmund Kean,” and another noted that “watching Edmund Kean act is like reading Shakespeare by flashes of lightning.”

Kean’s fiery and complex playing of Shylock paved the way for scores of actors who have chosen the sympathetic interpretation over the comic or overtly villainous—though it is recorded that Edwin Booth, elder brother of John Wilkes Booth, played the role as a simple villain. Henry Irving brought a proud aristocracy to the role in 1879, in a performance praised as “the summit of his career.”

American actor Jacob Adler won acclaim in the role in the early 20th century, playing it in a Yiddish-language production off-Broadway, and again on Broadway in an English-language production in which he alone spoke Yiddish. Adler’s Shylock evolved over time from a simple villain, to a man driven by ill treatment to revenge, to a towering figure brought down by his own pride. It is perhaps that pride that has become the one constant among the world’s notable Shylocks to this day.

In the 20th century, countless stage actors of note have contributed their performances to Shylock’s history. Laurence Olivier, Orson Welles, George C. Scott, Dustin Hoffman, F. Murray Abraham, Al Pacino, Scott Wentworth, David Suchet and Patrick Stewart have all tackled the role, some more than once (Olivier and Pacino on stage and screen, in fact). Each has brought his own unique take to productions that, at times, have tested the boundaries of conceptual interpretation. (One English production had Portia’s suitors competing in a game-show setting.) 

These Shylocks have all had one thing in common, however: each has been portrayed as a human being, and not simply as a clown, a monster or a metaphoric figure merely emblematic of his race.

City Lights is pleased to have acclaimed Bay Area actor Brian Herndon as Shylock. How delighted we are to add his name to the long list of luminaries who have tackled this difficult, complex and unforgettable role!

Note: The world will never want for written criticism and analysis of Shakespeare and his works; dozens of new works are published each year. The author, however, recommends one above all others: The Meaning of Shakespeare by Harold C. Goddard. Goddard’s essay on Merchant can be found in volume one of his invaluable work.

Noted stage actors Jacob Adler (top) and Edwin Booth (above).

Meet our Shylock:Brian Herndon

In playing Shylock at City Lights, Brian Herndon is well aware that audiences will be viewing him through their own preconceived notions, some accurate and some not. This adds some weight to the task. “There’s a history to this role,” he says. “When you take on a role that’s one of the best known in Shakespeare, you’re responsible for that in a way.” And that makes this production, his first at City LIghts, especially interesting.

As we’ve seen in the previous article, actors’ portrayals of Shylock have run the gamut from comic to truly evil. Brian

says he finds the moneylender sympathetic, despite the draconian terms of the loan he gives to merchant Antonio.

“I think that there’s ample justification, even if it’s not right what he does, for why he does it, in the way he’s been treated,” Brian says. “He has a really deep-rooted sense of justice. He hasn’t been treated justly… (The loan agreement is) his chance to get his world back in order again, even if it’s horrible.”

Both Shylock’s actions and the anti-Semitism displayed by other characters are disturbing to watch. Still, Brian

believes they and the play can teach an important lesson: so much of the horror in the world could be dispelled by empathy. “One of the reasons I do theater and teaching is empathy,” he says. “If you can understand why someone else thinks the way they do, even if you don’t agree with them, it makes life so much better. It gives you a starting place. These people just don’t. And don’t even really try.”

The stage and the classroom have been significant places in Brian’s life for nearly as long as he can remember. He

first started acting at age 6, when he was in a church production of Free to Be… You and Me. “I got to do a poem by myself and had to learn how to say ‘Schenectady.’”

Brian’s passion for theater led him to earn an MFA from the Alabama Shakespeare Festival, and then in 2000 get his Equity card back in the Bay Area, where he grew up. He calls the life of a union actor “lovely,” though it does mean continually looking for a new show when one closes. Typically, he does three to four shows a year, along with

teaching theater, stage combat and chorus at Odyssey Middle School in San Mateo. “I consider myself very lucky.”

Companies Brian commonly works with include TheatreWorks and Marin Theatre Company. He’s especially enjoyed playing Philip Elton in Jane Austen’s Emma at TheatreWorks and the many other stages where the show has been performed, including Lincoln Center.

Recently, Brian was in Emma again in New York, and word has it we’ll be able to watch the production online later

this year. Keep an eye on the City Lights Facebook page, and we’ll keep you posted when we know more!

When it comes to discussing Shakespeare, many controversial theories about his life arise. Scholars venture to ask debated and taboo questions revolving around the authorship of his plays, who he was, and what he left behind. Shakespeare was a living legend, so it only makes sense we continue the conversation 400 years after his death.

One of the biggest Shakespeare conspiracies is the question of authorship: did he really write these plays? The top two theories are: 1) a group of people wrote the plays and this one man took all the credit, and 2) Shakespeare is a pseudonym someone chose to use and ‘Shakespeare’ never truly existed.

Shakespeare often worked with the same troupe of actors, and theories speculate that those actors helped write some, if not all, of Shakespeare’s plays. To understand this theory, we turn to technology. Specifically, Word Adjacency Networks, or WANs, which help determine choice of words, target words and the distance between them. Authors leave marks, like fingerprints, and by using this WAN program, we can find them.

(If you’d like to know more about WAN, and you have several spare hours, read this extremely detailed paper from the Cornell University Library. Godspeed.)

After running the versions of Shakespeare’s plays through the WAN program, many scholars concluded that there's no way he wrote everything on his own. In fact, there are more than 80 people named as the “real” Shakespeare. The usual suspect is Sir Francis Bacon. Bacon and the Bard have similar lines in their poetry, and Bacon’s history with royalty and education seems to fit more with the person we have found “Shakespeare” to be.

While it’s not a popular theory, some scholars speculate that Shakespeare was Amelia Bassano Lanier. Yes, a woman. Her poetry, like Bacon’s, has some essence of Shakespeare. 126 out of Shakespeare’s 154 sonnets address a “Dark Lady.” Reports say that Lanier is this woman and wrote what she wished a man would finally say to her. Here’s an example of Lanier’s poetry, a short excerpt from Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum:

He rides upon the wings of all the windes, And spreads the heav'ns with his all powrefull hand; Oh! who can loose when the Almightie bindes? Or in his angry presence dares to stand? He searcheth out the secrets of all mindes; All those that feare him, shall possesse the Land: He is exceeding glorious to behold, Antient of Times; so faire, and yet so old. 

The final 28 sonnets written by Shakespeare were addressed to a man, a “Fair Lord.” Many of these sonnets talk about love, lust and desire: you know, Shakespeare things. Because of these sonnets, there is a theory that Shakespeare was gay. Though he was married to a woman and had children with her, some people still believe that he was hiding his true sexuality.

Shakespeare conspiracies

Was Shakespeare really a woman, and was he actually the poet Amelia Bassano Lanier? Maybe. Maybe not.

In the same vein, Shakespeare had his ears pierced. Back in the 1500’s, a man wearing earrings signified a more bohemian lifestyle. The Bard embraced his artistic ways and was often stereotyped as someone with looser morals, potentially experimenting with men.

In 2016, Alan Green, a Shakespeare-authorship scholar, introduced the world to his code-breaking theory. In Da Vinci Code fashion, Green searched Shakespeare’s poems, plays and grave engravings, and found a secret code left by The Bard himself. Shakespeare is buried in the Church of the Holy Trinity, in Stratford-upon-Avon. In the church, there is an altar with a Saint’s Cavity (a small hole within the altar that typically holds a significant relic). After many scans, it appears that the cavity is 250 times the normal size. Green believes Shakespeare left the answers to all our questions in this cavity.

Should we open this altar that hasn’t been tampered with for over 400 years? Why does the authorship of 37 plays, and even more poetry, hold significance? If you see the plays, do you not feel? If you read the words, do you not admire?

In the end, the themes and emotions in Shakespeare's body of work are timeless and seamlessly relatable to humankind. Everything researched is simply a compilation of theories and conspiracies and nothing too concrete. Shakespeare, whether he was a singular person, a magician who left codes or a woman, left a legacy. And nobody can fight that.

George Psarras, left, as Bassanio, and Jeffrey Bracco, right, as Antonio in The Merchant of Venice at City Lights.

Shakespeare’sworldofwords

Shakespearewasacreative.Heunderstoodtheimportanceofwordsandthepowertheycanhave.Whenhecouldn’tquitethinkofawordtouse,hemadeoneup.Whynot?Ofcourse,manyofthesewordsandphrasesarenowcommonplacetoday.

Hereareexamplesofsomeofthesewords,andtheplayswherethey@irstappeared.

addiction Othello,ActII,SceneII

laughableMerchantofVenice,ActI,SceneI

arch-villainTimonofAthens,ActV,SceneI

fashionableTroilusandCressida,ActIII,SceneIII

assassinationMacbeth,ActI,SceneVII

bedazzled TheTamingoftheShrew,ActIV,SceneV

eventfulAsYouLikeIt,ActII,SceneVII

swagger HenryV,ActII,SceneIV

Jessica TheMerchantofVenice(thenameofShylock’sdaughter)

Shylock (Brian Herndon), Bassanio (George Psarras) and Antonio (Jeffrey Bracco), scheming in Merchant.

A few more director’s thoughts from Kit WilderSome years ago I began thinking about staging The Merchant of Venice at City Lights. I floated the idea to many in the theater community, people whom I admire. Producers, actors and directors. Seasoned professionals all. They were unanimous in their reaction: “Don’t do it!” Now, while I understood their difficulty with the play, I simply couldn’t grasp their universal resistance to doing it. Yes, it’s hard, but what of that? Yes, it’s challenging to actors and audiences alike, but what of that? Yes, it’s populated with some of the most deceptively unpleasant characters in the canon, but what of that? All I could think, ultimately, was that it came down to the same age-old argument that keeps the play off of too many stages and out of too many schools: it is anti-Semitic.

Let me offer right here, right now: It’s not.

Yes, The Merchant of Venice offers an unapologetic, at times almost unwatchable portrait of anti-Semitism. That much cannot be denied. But art can depict a thing without espousing it, certainly! And the traditional argument that the play is nothing but a product of its times doesn’t add up: it also offers a like portrait of sentiment that is anti-Christian, anti-Moroccan, anti-Spanish, anti-French, and even anti-English. It is full of people who are “anti” something or someone else; the world of Merchant is suffering from a veritable epidemic of xenophobia.

That, I think, is the key to this admittedly challenging play: most of the people in it do not like people different from themselves. Shylock says it about his Christian rivals in faith and commerce, but everyone in the play is thinking it, about someone else, in virtually every moment: “I will not eat with you, drink with you, nor pray with you!” Is there a play more perfect for our own time—right here, right now?

There is nothing, nothing at all in his entire canon, to suggest that Shakespeare was anti-Semitic. But the playwright, as a student of human nature, was fascinated by the idea of “the other.” A great many of his plays are variations on the theme of being excluded in some way—or of thinking oneself so, which amounts to much same thing, really. So what was Shakespeare up to, then, in creating this rather ugly play about rather ugly people? The answer lies in what have come to be called the “casket scenes.”

I differ radically from critics who suggest that the casket scenes are mere distractions, pretty pageants irrelevant to the play and its themes. They are essential to the fabric of the play, and to our understanding of it! One must pay close attention to the casket scenes: they reveal much. These scenes, and the “test” that Portia’s suitors are given, are built around the simple idea that what we see is often not at all what we get. We all know that this is especially true of people. The play, then, is a kind of “casket test” for all of us: we see in it what we want to see, and find in it what we want to find. A play about racial hatred? If you say so. A play about the evils of commerce? As you will. And what you say, and how you see it, and what you would have it be, speaks volumes about you and your world. Just as Portia’s suitors must choose, so must audiences—and is it too much to suggest that you are what you choose? The Merchant of Venice is only a play, after all—but who and what are you? Are you gold, silver or base lead?

Everyone in the play must take the casket test; most, if not all, fail it. Everyone watching it must do the same; I trust you will fare better!

Because it is up to every reader or audience member to make up his or her own mind about the play, I can only offer once more my own contention, firmly held and deeply, personally manifested, that while it depicts anti-Semitism, The Merchant of Venice is not itself anti-Semitic. It is, rather, about all kinds of human weakness, inexplicable and pervasive, anti-Semitism being only one. It is, in essence, about hatred. Not racial hatred, not religious hatred. Just . . . hatred. And how it poisons everyone, both “him that gives, and him that takes.”

Seek me out after the performance. If I’m at the theater, I would love to talk to you about theater, about Shakespeare, and about The Merchant of Venice.

City Lights Theater Company presents The Merchant of Venice from March 22-April 22, 2018. Shows are Thursday-Saturday at 8 p.m., Sundays at 2 p.m. (no shows March 25 & April 1).

The theater is at 529 S. Second St. in San Jose. Details: cltc.org, 408-295-4200.

Director: Kit Wilder

Scenic Design/Production Manager/Technical Director: Ron Gasparinetti

Lighting Design: John Bernard

Costume Design: Pat Tyler

Music & Sound Design: George Psarras

Properties Designer: Miranda Whipple

Assistant Director: Erin Southard

Stage Manager: Joseph Hidde

Assistant Stage Manager: Charnnee’ Young

Set Construction & Master Electrician: Joseph Hidde

Carpenter/Painter/Electrician: Sean Kramer

Scenic Artist: Ting Na Wang

Painters: Alex Yasuda, Miranda Caravalho

Featuring: Tasi Alabastro, Jeffrey Bracco, Tom Gough, April Green, Brian Herndon*,

Bezachin Jifar, Nick Mandracchia, Maria Giere Marquis, Caitlin Papp, George Psarras*, Roneet Aliza Rahamim, Jeremy Ryan and Max Tachis

*Member, Actors’ Equity Association

This issue of Highlights was researched and written by City Lights dramaturg Rebecca Wallace and marketing intern Carol Alban, with special sections by Merchant of Venice director Kit Wilder.

Read past issues, and a digital version of this issue, at cltc.org/highlights.

Photography note: All the production photos in this issue were taken by Taylor Sanders at the Silicon Valley Capital Club in downtown San Jose. On the cover: Maria Giere Marquis as Portia.

The Merchant of Veniceby William Shakespeare