Review: PLAYING SHYLOCK

Live and in person at the Berkeley Street Theatre, Toronto, Ont. Playing until Dec. 8, 2024.

www.canadianstage.com

Written by Mark Leiren-Young

Directed by Martin Kinch

Set and costumes by Shawn Kerwin

Sound by Olivia Wheeler

Lighting by Steven Hawkins

Cast: Saul Rubinek

Smart, bracing, perceptive, timely and wonderfully acted and directed.

The Story. Playing Shylock by Mark Leiren-Young is a really challenging, bracing play. In this time of divisiveness about race, religion and ethnicity this play is a hot potato. It asks really prickly questions about The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare, such as: is it antisemitic? should it even be done because of the subject matter; does one cancel a production of it if there are protests? It deals also with honouring one’s father; acting; the importance of theatre and why do it at all. And it talks about the world.

The Merchant of Venice is always a provocative, timely play, and Playing Shylockinvestigates that and other pertinent questions.

To appreciate Playing Shylock it’s helpful to know the story of The Merchant of Venice, and so the programme has a short synopsis to help the audience that has never seen the play. Here is my synopsis: In Shakespeare’s play, Antonio, a rich Gentile Merchant comes to Shylock, a Jew,  to make a loan of 3,000 ducats. While Antonio is a prosperous merchant, at the moment he doesn’t have the money and he’s making a loan for his friend Bassanio so he can court Portia. Antonio is an anti-semite who has never hidden his hate and contempt of Shylock as a Jew. But he’ll ignore that to make this loan. Shylock reminds Antonio of his contempt but sees a way of getting this Gentile to be beholding so agrees to the loan.

And the penalty if Antonio forfeits? Shylock says he wants “a pound of your flesh.” It’s both horrifying and funny; horrifying because it shows Shylocks loathing of Antonio; funny because of course it would never happen that Antonio would renege. But things happen to Antonio’s holdings and his prospects to repay are dashed. And something has happened in Shylock’s life that he now wants justice and his pound of flesh. Needless to say, The Merchant of Venice is fraught with thorny issues and emotional baggage.  Not to mention is it antisemitic or about antisemitism?

The Production and comment. The premise of the production of Playing Shylock is that the audience is waiting for ACT II of The Merchant of Veniceto begin. We hear several notifications that ACT II will begin in five minutes, then three minutes, then, it’s about to begin. The door to the side of the theatre opens and the actor (Saul Rubinek) playing Shylock enters to say that he’s just been informed that the production has been cancelled. He wears a yarmulka, a black suit with a prayer shawl. He notes the protests outside the theatre and for the safety of all concerned the production is cancelled. He’s appalled. This conceit puts the play by Shakespeare and our present world of protests for whatever reasons, in the same realm.

And so the world of Shylock in The Merchant of Venice and the world of the actor playing Shylock in Playing Shylock, namely Saul Rubinek, collide, meld and intertwine.

Saul Rubinek is the child of Holocaust survivors. He was born in a refugee camp in Germany after the war. His father was an actor and ran a Yiddish theatre company until Hitler put a stop to that. The family immigrated to Canada when Saul Rubinek was nine months old. At his parents’ suggestion, Rubinek began taking drama classes at the Ottawa Little Theatre when he was a kid in 1960. Rubinek became an actor, moved to Toronto and was one of the founding members of Toronto Free Theatre that performed out of the Berkeley Street Theatre 50 years ago. Toronto Free Theatre segued into a company that is now known as Canadian Stage. So Rubinek was very keen to do Playing Shylock at the theatre where he got his start in 1974, and with Martin Kinch, the director he worked with often in the early Toronto Free Theatre days.

Rubinek wanted to do Playing Shylock at the Berkeley Street Theatre and certainly with Martin Kinch directing. Kinch gently guides Rubinek around the space, using the room effectively (it also helps that Rubinek is microphoned). Rubinek also paces himself (along with the guiding hand of his director) in the Merchant of Venice scenes, not expressing his anger too soon in the speeches.

In Playing Shylock, Rubinek ruminates on acting, being Jewish, how tough it is for Jewish actors to play leading parts in Canada, and certainly at Stratford. He notes that no Jewish actor has ever played Shylock at our Stratford—actually Paul Soles did in 2001 replacing Al Waxman who died during open heart surgery.

But then Rubinek does look at the question of who should play what parts? He talks about the accusation of “appropriation” when an actor plays a part different from his ethnicity/background etc. Rubinek’s answer is that all acting is appropriation.

I loved that.

He notes that it’s a trap/problem that actors get slotted into playing roles that are close to their lives. Should only gay actors play gay parts? That’s a trap waiting to happen. I would also ask, should only Jewish actors play Shylock? In Rubinek’s case, he knew that his father would love to have played Shylock, but then he lost his livelihood because Hitler closed the Yiddish Theatre.

Needless to say, The Merchant of Venice is referenced and quoted during Playing Shylock. Saul Rubinek gives many speeches from the play using a Yiddish accent, and at the end of the play repeats the speech about revenge: “Hath not a Jew eyes…..” in Yiddish. The anger is palpable. One wonders, are we watching Saul Rubinek play Shylock or are we watching Saul Rubinek imagining how his Yiddish speaking father would play the part? Both are fascinating possibilities.  When Rubinek is saying the speeches it’s fierce, vivid, controlled, angry, and powerful.

He brings up the present-day rallying cry of cancelling a show because it’s uncomfortable, people might be offended, people protest and so matters might be dangerous. These happenings are getting dangerously common place. I think of The Runner being cancelled at The Belfry Theatre in Victoria last year and then the Push Festival cancelled it in Vancouver earlier this year because of protests of the subject matter—Jacob is an orthodox Jew in Israel and is a member of Z.A.K.A, an Israeli group of first responders who come to scenes of terrorist attacks to save the body parts, blood and bones of wounded Israelis. In scene of a terrorist attack, Jacob sees a dead soldier and close to him is an Arab woman who is wounded. Jacob tended to the woman because he ascertained the soldier was dead. He is pilloried for this humane decision by his mother, brother and fellow Z.A.K.A members. The play examines his decision. (The Runner will be part of the Harold Green Jewish Theatre 24-25 season here in Toronto.)

Saul Rubinek is no stranger to doing challenging theatre.  He is an actor who was at the cutting edge of doing uncomfortable, challenging theatre years ago at the beginning of Toronto Free Theatre, so in the most elegant ways, Rubinek skewers ideas of censorship and cancellations. He also examines doing theatre vs. doing film and television—which he has done successfully for decades in Los Angeles.

There is also a long-impassioned speech about how Shakespeare could not have written the play—it had to be Edward de Vere the 17^th Earl of Oxford. The argument comes out in a torrent as the points keep piling up as proof. Never mind that scholars have disprove the theory. It is bracing to hear Rubinek’s arguments.

I keep on saying Rubinek’s arguments—the play was written by Mark Leiren-Young and he is referencing a lot of Rubinek’s life, so it seems as if it’s autobiographical. I love the melding. I also love the many questions.

Should The Merchant of Venice be put to rest because it’s so contentious? I think the answer is obvious since Playing Shylock so heavily references The Merchant of Venice. Personally, I think The Merchant of Venice should be done every day, everywhere because it’s important,  uncomfortable and painful. It depicts our angry, blinkered, racist world and it doesn’t let us look away, thanks to Playing Shylock.

Canadian Stage Presents

Plays at the Berkeley Street Theatre until Dec. 8, 2024.

Running time: 90 minutes (no intermission)

www.canadianstage.com