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They Shall Not Pass
Mar. 5th, 2025 07:29 pmFareham Live this afternoon for The Merchant of Venice 1936. With several abridgments, Shakespeare’s text was left intact, except for Shylock and Gobbo being women and referenced as ‘she’, the Prince of Morocco becoming a Maharajah, and the occasional ‘Venetian’ becoming ‘Englishman’ to fit the action being relocated to 1936 East London.
The play opened with Shylock and a seated company at dinner, with lighting of Jewish candles and Hebrew prayers and toasts. Next came a newspanel and clip of British Union of Fascists activity in 1936; these were interspersed between scenes throughout. As well as being assistant director, Tracy-Ann Oberman played Shylock. She was superb. Georgie Fellows was good, playing Portia as a shrewd socialite. Several of the characters antagonistic to Shylock appeared as Blackshirts; at the start of one scene a drunken Graziano urinated on the synagogue door singing an anti-Semitic song.
At the climax, after a defeated Shylock has slunk offstage (with a suitcase) and Portia and Nerissa reveal their possession of the rings to their errant husbands, a clip of Cable Street on 4 October 1936 appeared, the actors playing the anti-Semites removed their distinguishing apparel to transform into ordinary East Londoners, and Tracy-Ann returned to the stage for the whole cast to erect a barricade with a ‘They Shall Not Pass’ banner. Tracy-Ann then broke character to tell the audience how her great-grandmother was on the barricades in Cable Street, how ordinary Londoners of all communities turned out to support the Jewish residents, and how similar scenes played out in Leeds, Liverpool and Southampton.
A stunning piece of theatre.
The play opened with Shylock and a seated company at dinner, with lighting of Jewish candles and Hebrew prayers and toasts. Next came a newspanel and clip of British Union of Fascists activity in 1936; these were interspersed between scenes throughout. As well as being assistant director, Tracy-Ann Oberman played Shylock. She was superb. Georgie Fellows was good, playing Portia as a shrewd socialite. Several of the characters antagonistic to Shylock appeared as Blackshirts; at the start of one scene a drunken Graziano urinated on the synagogue door singing an anti-Semitic song.
At the climax, after a defeated Shylock has slunk offstage (with a suitcase) and Portia and Nerissa reveal their possession of the rings to their errant husbands, a clip of Cable Street on 4 October 1936 appeared, the actors playing the anti-Semites removed their distinguishing apparel to transform into ordinary East Londoners, and Tracy-Ann returned to the stage for the whole cast to erect a barricade with a ‘They Shall Not Pass’ banner. Tracy-Ann then broke character to tell the audience how her great-grandmother was on the barricades in Cable Street, how ordinary Londoners of all communities turned out to support the Jewish residents, and how similar scenes played out in Leeds, Liverpool and Southampton.
A stunning piece of theatre.
