Professor David Peimer
The Merchant of Venice in Film, Part 1
Summary
Professor David Peimer discusses how the image of Shylock, and therefore the image of the Jew, is portrayed in “The Merchant of Venice” in all of its various film productions through history. Part 1 of 2.
Professor David Peimer
David Peimer is a professor of theatre and performance studies in the UK. He has taught at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, and New York University (Global Division), and was a Fulbright Scholar at Columbia University. Born in South Africa, David has won numerous awards for playwriting and directing. He has written eleven plays and directed forty in places like South Africa, New York, Brussels, London, Berlin, Zulu Kingdom, Athens, and more. His writing has been published widely and he is the editor of Armed Response: Plays from South Africa (2009) and the interactive digital book Theatre in the Camps (2012). He is on the board of the Pinter Centre in London.
As I was saying, I don’t think, well the Jews were banned for 300 years. And so over Shakespeare’s time, I doubt he would have met a Jew. Perhaps seen in the street or somewhere, but they were not allowed to live there. So it’s his imagination pushing through to understand the Other.
Yeah, I mean, Jessica he loses, ‘cause Jessica runs off with a Christian and steals a whole lot of his money, and that’s it, is it?
That’s a very interesting question. I don’t think so. And, want to call him Abraham, Isaac, or Joseph? I think Shakespeare would’ve wanted to get away from a name that was literally from the bible, and find something else, because of possible, because the bible is still used, the Old Testament, obviously he’s still using in Christian times, and the Jews are banned. I don’t know, I’m purely speculating. We can’t know the mind of the writer.