ManicDDaily

I took a break from my normal cut-in-stone activities last night to see the wonderful Al Pacino in Daniel Sullivan’s production of The Merchant of Venice (previously done as part of Shakespeare in the Park.)

I have to confess to never having seen the play before.   Its easy characterization as Anti-semitic makes it a play at which many Shakespeare lovers (even Shakespeare idolators) tend to cringe.

But the play (at least in this incarnation) is frankly amazing, both funnier, much much sadder, and more nuanced, than I had ever realized.

Of course, the language used about and against Jews by the “Venetians” is horrible;  the insinuations and contempt are hard to listen to.  Were the slurs accepted easily in Elizabethan England?  Undoubtedly.  Do they represent Shakespeare’s views?   All one can say is that, as the play goes on, it becomes clear that many of the Christian characters using this language are faithless and venal, many of them oath-breakers and seekers of other’s fortunes.  (See e.g. the romantic hero, Bassanio.)

Shylock in contrast, clings to oaths and bonds.  Played in both a very human yet shruggingly stereotyped fashion by Pacino, he has a Lear-like majesty and pathos.  (“I had a daughter.”).  He is certainly vengeful, but, the Venetians (in this production) are also pretty vengeful.   The characters, and virtually everything else in the play–daughters, metal caskets, the law, mercy, even rings–have at least two sides.

Which brings me to Glenn Beck and George Soros.   I haven’t been able to get myself to listen to all of Beck’s recent rant on Soros, but the part I heard involves Beck accusing the 14-year old Soros of assisting the Nazis during his youth in Nazi-occupied Hungary.  Soros, Beck says, “used to go around with this anti-Semite and deliver papers to the Jews and confiscate their property and then ship them off.”

Did Soros feel guilt about that?  No! Beck says.  Does the goodly Beck judge him?  Again, no!   This is between Soros and God, Beck says.

(To inject a few facts–Soros, to hide his identity in Nazi-occupied Hungary, lived with an agriculture official bribed by his father to pretend that the boy was his Christian godson. Soros once had to accompany his protector to inventory a confiscated Jewish estate. Asked by 60 Minutes if he felt guilty about it, he said no, because he wasn’t a participant and couldn’t stop it.)

Beck’s piece is sickening; it traffics in hyperbole and innuendo; it degrades and distorts history.

What makes it (almost) worse is Beck’s disingenuousness.

One of the wonderful things about Shylock’s character is his straight-forwardness–when asked why he insists on his pound of flesh, he basically says it’s because he’s been wronged, he’s vengeful and he hates Antonio.  No lies, no innuendo, minimal psychobabble.