ON the first night of the “Merchant of Venice” at Boston, Irving
played Shylock, I think, with more than ordinary thoughtfulness in
regard to his original treatment of the part. His New York method was,
to me, a little more vigorous than his London rendering of the part.
Considerations of the emphasis which actors have laid upon certain
scenes that are considered as especially favorable to the declamatory
methods possibly influenced him. His very marked success in Louis no
doubt led some of his admirers in America to expect in his Shylock a
very hard, grim, and cruel Jew. Many persons hinted as much to him
before they saw his impersonation of this much-discussed character. At
Boston I thought he was, if possible, over-conscientious in traversing
the lines he laid down for himself when he first decided to produce
the “Merchant” at the Lyceum. Singularly sensitive about the feelings
of his audiences, and accustomed to judge them as keenly as they judge
him, he fancied the Boston audience, which had been very enthusiastic
in their applause on the previous nights, were not stirred as they had
been by his other work in response to his efforts as Shylock. The play,
nevertheless, was received with the utmost cordiality, and the general
representation of it was admirable. I found a Londoner in front, who
was in raptures with it. “I think the carnival, Belmont, and court
scenes,” he said, “were never better done at the Lyceum.”
At the close of the piece, and after a double call for Irving and Miss
Terry, I went to his dressing-room.
“Yes,” he said, “the play has gone well, very well, indeed; but the
audience were not altogether with me. I always feel, in regard to this
play, that they do not quite understand what I am doing. They only
responded at all to-night where Shylock’s rage and mortification get
the better of his dignity.”
“They are accustomed to have the part of Shylock strongly declaimed;
indeed, all the English Shylocks, as well as American representatives
of the part, are very demonstrative in it. Phelps was, so was Charles
Kean; and I think American audiences look for the declamatory passages
in Shylock, to compare your rendering of them with the readings they
have previously heard. You omit much of what is considered great
business in Shylock, and American audiences are probably a little
disappointed that your view of the part forbids anything like what
may be called the strident characteristics of most other Shylocks.
Charles Kean ranted considerably in Shylock, and Phelps was decidedly
noisy,—both fine, no doubt, in their way. Nevertheless they made the
Jew a cruel butcher of a Jew. They filled the stage with his sordid
greed and malignant desire for vengeance on the Christian, from his
first entrance to his final exit.”
“I never saw Kean’s Shylock, nor Phelps’s, nor, indeed, any one’s. But
I am sure Shylock was not a low person; a miser and usurer, certainly,
but a very injured man,—at least he thought so. I felt that my
audience to-night had quite a different opinion, and I once wished the
house had been composed entirely of Jews. I would like to play Shylock
to a Jewish audience.”
Mr. Warren,[28] the famous Boston comedian, came into the
dressing-room while we were talking. He has been a favorite here for
thirty-six years.
“Not so long in one place as Mr. Howe,” he says, with a smile, “who
tells me he was a member of the Haymarket Company for forty years.”
“You know Mr. Toole well?” said Mr. Irving.
“Yes,” he replied; “it was a pleasure to meet him here.”
“He often talks of you.”
“I am glad to know it,” he replied; “I want to tell you how delighted I
have been to-night. It is the “Merchant of Venice,” for the first time.
I have never seen the casket scene played before, nor the last act for
twenty years. A great audience, and how thoroughly they enjoyed the
piece I need not tell you.”
“I don’t think they cared for me,” said Irving.
“Yes, yes, I am sure they did,” Mr. Warren replied, at which moment
an usher brought Miss Terry, to be introduced to him, and the subject
dropped, to be revived over a quiet cigar after supper.
“I look on Shylock,” says Irving, in response to an invitation to
talk about his work in that direction, “as the type of a persecuted
race; almost the only gentleman in the play, and most ill-used. He is
a merchant, who trades in the Rialto, and Bassanio and Antonio are
not ashamed to borrow money of him, nor to carry off his daughter. The
position of his child is, more or less, a key to his own. She is the
friend of Portia. Shylock was well-to-do—a Bible-read man, as his
readiness at quotation shows; and there is nothing in his language,
at any time, that indicates the snuffling usurer which some persons
regard him, and certainly nothing to justify the use the early actors
made of the part for the low comedian. He was a religious Jew; learned,
for he conducted his case with masterly skillfulness, and his speech
is always lofty, and full of dignity. Is there a finer language in
Shakespeare than Shylock’s defence of his race? ‘Hath not a Jew eyes;
hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions;
fed with the same food; hurt with the same weapons; subject to the
same diseases; healed by the same means; warmed and cooled by the same
winter and summer, as a Christian is?’ As to the manner of representing
Shylock, take the first part of the story; note his moods. He is, to
begin with, quiet, dignified, diplomatic; then satirical; and next,
somewhat light and airy in his manner, with a touch of hypocrisy in it.
Shakespeare does not indicate at what precise moment Shylock conceives
the idea of the bond; but he himself tells us of his anxiety to have
Antonio on the hip.
“‘I will feed fat the ancient grudge I bear him.
He hates our sacred nation, and he rails,
Even there where merchants most do congregate,
On me, my bargains, and my well-won thrift,
Which he calls interest.’
“His first word is more or less fawning; but it breaks out into
reproach and satire when he recalls the insults that have been heaped
upon him. ‘Hath a dog money?’ and so on; still he is diplomatic, for he
wants to make reprisals upon Antonio: ‘Cursed be my tribe if I forgive
him!’ He is plausible, even jocular. He speaks of his bond of blood
as a merry sport. Do you think if he were strident or spiteful in his
manner here, loud of voice, bitter, they would consent to sign a bond
having in it such fatal possibilities? One of the interesting things
for an actor to do is to try to show when Shylock is inspired with
the idea of this bargain, and to work out by impersonation the Jew’s
thought in his actions. My view is, that from the moment Antonio turns
upon him, declaring he is ‘like to spit upon him again,’ and invites
him scornfully to lend the money, not as to his friend, but rather
to his enemy, who, if he break, he may with better force exact the
penalty,—from that moment I imagine Shylock resolving to propose his
pound of flesh, perhaps without any hope of getting it. Then he puts on
that hypocritical show of pleasantry which so far deceives them as to
elicit from Antonio the remark that ‘the Hebrew will turn Christian;
he grows kind.’ Well, the bond is to be sealed, and when next we meet
the Jew he is still brooding over his wrongs, and there is in his words
a constant, though vague, suggestion of a desire for revenge, nothing
definite or planned, but a continual sense of undeserved humiliation
and persecution:—
“‘I am bid forth to supper, Jessica.
There are my keys. But why should I go?
I am not bid for love. They flatter me;
But yet I’ll go in hate, to feed upon
The prodigal Christian.’
“But one would have to write a book to go into these details, and tell
an actor’s story of Shylock.”
“We are not writing a book of Shylock now, but only chatting about your
purpose and intention generally in presenting to the public what is
literally to them a new Shylock, and answering, perhaps, a few points
of that conservative kind of criticism which preaches tradition and
custom. Come to the next phase of Shylock’s character, or, let us say,
his next dramatic mood.”
“Well, we get at it in the street scene: rage,—a confused passion; a
passion of rage and disappointment, never so confused and mixed; a man
beside himself with vexation and chagrin.
“‘My daughter! Oh, my ducats! Oh, my daughter!
Fled with a Christian! Oh, my Christian ducats!
Justice! the law! my ducats and my daughter!’
“I saw a Jew once, in Tunis, tear his hair, his raiment, fling himself
in the sand, and writhe in a rage, about a question of money,—beside
himself with passion. I saw him again, self-possessed and fawning; and
again, expressing real gratitude for a trifling money courtesy. He was
never undignified until he tore at his hair and flung himself down,
and then he was picturesque; he was old, but erect, even stately, and
full of resource, and as he walked behind his team of mules he carried
himself with the lofty air of a king. He was a Spanish Jew,—Shylock
probably was of Frankfort; but Shakespeare’s Jew was a type, not
a mere individual: he was a type of the great, grand race,—not a
mere Hounsditch usurer. He was a man famous on the Rialto; probably
a foremost man in his synagogue; proud of his descent; conscious of
his moral superiority to many of the Christians who scoffed at him,
and fanatic enough, as a religionist, to believe that his vengeance
had in it the element of a godlike justice. Now, you say that some
of my critics evidently look for more fire in the delivery of the
speeches to Solanio, and I have heard friends say, that John Kemble
and the Keans brought down the house for the way they thundered out
the threats against Antonio, and the defence of the Jewish race. It is
in this scene that we realize, for the first time, that Shylock has
resolved to enforce his bond. Three times, during a very short speech,
he says, ‘Let him look to his bond!’ ‘A beggar that was used to come
so smug upon the mart; _let him look to his bond_; he was wont to
call me usurer; _let him look to his bond_; he was wont to lend money
for a Christian courtesy; _let him look to his bond_.’ Now, even an
ordinary man, who had made up his mind to ‘have the heart of him if he
forfeit,’ would not shout and rave and storm. My friend at Tunis tore
his hair at a trifling disappointment; if he had resolved to stab his
rival he would have muttered his intention between his teeth, not have
screeched it. How much less likely still would this bitterly persecuted
Jew merchant of Venice have given his resolve a loud and noisy
utterance! Would not his settled hate have been more likely to show
itself in the clinched hand, the firmly planted foot, the flashing eye,
and the deep undertones in which he would utter the closing threat:
_’Let him look to his bond’?_ I think so.”
“And so do the most thoughtful among your audiences. Now and then,
however, a critic shows himself so deeply concerned for what is called
tradition that he feels it incumbent upon him to protest against
a Shylock who is not, from first to last, a transparent and noisy
ruffian.”
“Tradition! One day we will talk of that. In Davenant’s time,—and
some dare to say he got his tradition from Shakespeare himself—they
played Shylock as a comic character, in a red wig; and to make it, as
they thought, consistent, they cut out the noblest lines the author had
put into his mouth, and added some of their own. We have no tradition
in the sense that those who would insist upon our observance of it
means; what we have is bad,—Garrick played Othello in a red coat and
epaulettes; and if we are to go back to Shakespeare’s days, some of
these sticklers for so-called tradition forget that the women were
played by boys. Shakespeare did the best he could in his day, and
he would do the best he could if he were living now. Tradition! It
is enough to make one sick to hear the pretentious nonsense that is
talked about the stage in the name of tradition. It seems to me that
there are two ways of representing Shakespeare. You have seen David’s
picture of Napoleon and that by Delaroche. The first is a heroic
figure,—head thrown back, arm extended, cloak flying,—on a white
horse of the most powerful, but unreal, character, which is rearing
up almost upon its haunches, its forelegs pawing the air. That is
Napoleon crossing the Alps. I think there is lightning in the clouds.
It is a picture calculated to terrify; a something so unearthly in its
suggestion of physical power as to cut it off from human comprehension.
Now, this represents to me one way of playing Shakespeare. The other
picture is still the same subject, ‘Napoleon crossing the Alps’; but in
this one we see a reflective, deep-browed man, enveloped in his cloak,
and sitting upon a sturdy mule, which, with a sure and steady foot, is
climbing the mountain, led by a peasant guide. This picture represents
to me the other way of playing Shakespeare. The question is, which is
right? I think the truer picture is _the right_ cue to the poet who
himself described the actor’s art as to hold, as it were, the mirror up
to nature.”
“Which should bring us very naturally back to Shylock. Let us return to
your brief dissertation at the point where he is meditating vengeance
in case of forfeiture of the bond.”
“Well, the latest mood of Shylock dates from this time,—it is one of
implacable _revenge_. Nothing shakes him. He thanks God for Antonio’s
ill-luck. There is in this darkness of his mind a tender recollection
of Leah. And then the calm command to Tubal, ‘Bespeak me an officer.’
What is a little odd is his request that Tubal shall meet him at the
synagogue. It might be that Shakespeare suggested here the idea of
a certain sacredness of justice in Shylock’s view of vengeance on
Antonio. Or it might be to accentuate the religious character of the
Jew’s habits; for Shylock was assuredly a religious Jew, strict in his
worship, and deeply read in his Bible,—no small thing, this latter
knowledge, in those days. I think this idea of something divine in
his act of vengeance is the key-note to the trial-scene, coupled, of
course, with the intense provocation he has received.
“‘Thou calledst me dog before thou hadst a cause;
But since I am a dog, beware my fangs!
The duke shall grant me justice.
... Follow not,
I’ll have no speaking; I will have my bond.’
“These are the words of a man of fixed, implacable purpose, and his
skilful defence of it shows him to be wise and capable. He is the most
self-possessed man in the court. Even the duke, in the judge’s seat, is
moved by the situation. What does he say to Antonio?
“‘I am sorry for thee; thou art come to answer
A stony adversary.’
“Everything indicates a stern, firm, persistent, implacable purpose,
which in all our experience of men is, as a rule, accompanied by an
apparently calm manner. A man’s passion which unpacks itself in oaths
and threats, which stamps and swears and shouts, may go out in tears,
but not in vengeance. On the other hand, there are those who argue that
Antonio’s reference to his own patience and to Shylock’s fury implies a
noisy passion on the part of the Jew; but, without taking advantage of
any question as to the meaning of ‘fury’ in this connection, it seems
to me that Shylock’s contempt for his enemies, his sneer at Gratiano:—
“‘Till thou canst rail the seal from off my bond,
Thou but offend’st thy lungs to speak so loud’—
and his action throughout the court scene, quite outweigh any argument
in favor of a very demonstrative and furious representation of the
part. ‘I stand here for law!’ Then note when he realizes the force of
the technical flaws in his bond,—and there are lawyers who contend
the law was severely and unconstitutionally strained in this decision
of the court,—he is willing to take his bond paid thrice; he cannot
get that, he asks for the principal; when that is refused he loses
his temper, as it occurs to me, for the first time during the trial,
and in a rage exclaims, ‘Why, then, the devil give him good of it!’
There is a peculiar and special touch at the end of that scene which,
I think, is intended to mark and accentuate the crushing nature of the
blow which has fallen upon him. When Antonio stipulates that Shylock
shall become a Christian, and record a deed of gift to Lorenzo, the Jew
cannot speak. ‘He shall do this,’ says the duke, ‘or else I do recant
the pardon.’ Portia turns and questions him. He is hardly able to utter
a word. ‘I am content,’ is all he says; and what follows is as plain
an instruction as was ever written in regard to the conduct and manner
of the Jew. ‘Clerk, draw a deed of gift,’ says Portia. Note Shylock’s
reply, his last words, the answer of the defeated litigant, who is
utterly crushed and borne down:—
“‘I pray you give me leave to go from hence;
I am not well; send the deed after me,
And I will sign it.’
“Is it possible to imagine anything more helpless than this final
condition of the Jew? ‘I am not well; give me leave to go from hence!’
How interesting it is to think this out! and how much we all learn from
the actors when, to the best of their ability, they give the characters
they assume as if they were really present, working out their studies,
in their own way, and endowing them with the characterization of their
own individuality! It is cruel to insist that one actor shall simply
follow in the footsteps of another; and it is unfair to judge an
actor’s interpretation of a character from the stand-point of another
actor; his intention should be considered, and he should be judged from
the point of how he succeeds or fails in carrying it out.”