Last week saw Tracy-Ann Oberman’s The Merchant of Venice 1936, a play which premiered nearly two years ago, revived with a glittering opening night. But while back in early 2023 the play garnered a sense of excitement, achievement and education, today the (still excellent) production provokes a more unsettled reaction from its audience.
The adaptation by Oberman and Brigid Larmour tells the story, not from the medieval Venetian perspective but set in 1930s England, a time when Oberman’s grandmother was one of the many to take a stand at the Battle of Cable Street, fighting Oswald Mosley’s fascists. Two years ago, the evening was a fine translation of classic literature into modern history.
But since then, history has marched on apace. On 7 October 2023, some seven months after Oberman’s opening night, thousands of Hamas terrorists invaded Israel from Gaza, wreaking murder, rape and torture upon southern Israel’s predominantly Jewish population. Hostages were taken, many of whom remain in captivity.
Antisemitism has long been described as a very light sleeper, never more so than in the immediate aftermath of the Hamas attack when antisemites around the world celebrated the butchery. In Australia the hatred escalated so rapidly that by 9 October there were large crowds outside the Sydney Opera House calling for Jews to be gassed.
And so while Oberman and Larmour may have intended their production to be a history lesson on the hatred of antisemitism, they could scarcely have imagined the speed at which their adaptation was almost to appear to seem dated, such is its relevance.
Antisemitism has long been described as a very light sleeper, never more so than after the Hamas attack when antisemites celebrated the butchery
The months since October 2023 have only seen those hateful chants get louder. Jews who visit the Trafalgar Theatre today are not just witnessing a play about 20th century England, they also recognise that what Oberman and her talented cast are playing on out on stage is happening in real life too.
Halfway through the play, Shylock’s London synagogue is daubed with a “Jews Out” slogan, as posters of Mosley appear on stage. Swap that message for today’s calls to “Free Palestine” and the stage set could just as easily be depicting 2025 as 1936.
Reflecting on those Australian calls to slaughter the Jews, the other infamous chant to which Jews are now subject is “From The River To The Sea, Palestine Will Be Free” a phrase that is as ignorant as it is menacing. That ten-word slogan calls not for any peaceful co-existence with Israel but for an eradication of the Jewish state.
Jonathan Baz
On closer inspection those ten words see hate outweighing history, with one only needing to consider modern Jerusalem and the site of the Jewish Second Temple. Constructed in the first millennium BCE and destroyed by the Romans in 70CE, it is only the Western Wall of the Temple Mount that remains to this day.
That the site, profoundly sacred to Jews, was then conquered, colonised and built over is but one of the chapters of Jerusalem’s complex history. So if the call really is to “free” an unquestionably troubled region, it is not unreasonable to ask: freed from whom?
Shylock’s final humiliation is at the hands of the Duke, where having already lost his daughter, he is stripped of both faith and fortune by the Jew-hating court. With echoes of France’s 19th century Dreyfus trial, Oberman’s audiences will view this scene today in the context of the antisemitic actions of a number of nation states and international organisations, today’s equivalent of the play’s biased courtroom.
The last year has seen the UN together with various aid agencies repeatedly found to have had employees embedded in the infrastructure of terrorist organisations. The International Court of Justice has issued a warrant for the arrest of Israel’s Prime Minister while remaining deafeningly silent regarding the actions of murderous despots elsewhere.
The South African and Irish governments have accused Israel of waging genocide and then sought to re-define that word, making the alleged crime fit the punishment. The extent of antisemitism in the world today suggests that Shakespeare really was profoundly prescient.
While Israel had to experience the sheer brutality of October 7th, the ensuing overspill of hatred into so many walks of life in the diaspora has been shocking. In the UK, from London’s swankiest shopping streets through to some of the country’s most deprived regions, Palestinian flags abound.
Amid all this hatred, Oberman herself has stepped up to prove that she is made of the bravest mettle, calling out the bias and discrimination that she experiences, not only within her world as an actor, but in the wider UK Jewish community. Frequently the target of the vilest misogyny and racist abuse, to the extent that her show’s producers are required to hire security guards to protect Oberman and her fellow cast and crew, she is one of today’s heroines.
Oberman ends her play with an impassioned plea for tolerance. Maybe there is a glimmer of optimism for the future. I spoke last week with a prominent member of the UK’s Jewish community, who while visibly upset having just seen the play, referenced the line from Julius Caesar, “There is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune.”
Perhaps, she observed, that tide may be about to turn.
- Jonathan Baz is a theatre critic and broadcaster. You can read more of his writing at www.jonathanbaz.com. The Merchant of Venice 1936 plays at the Trafalgar Theatre until 25 January before touring.
