Countering Shylock in Post-World War II New York: Peter Frye`s 1947 Adaptation of The Merchant of Venice, Produced at the Hebrew-Language Pargod Theatre

The Merchant of Venice, more than any other work of literature, challenged post-Holocaust Jews to find a way to negotiate the consequences of anti-Semitism in Western culture. The question was openly articulated in Shylock ’47, a Hebrew-language stage production presented by the Pargod Theatre, a small semi-professional New-York- based Hebrew-language Company. Directed by Peter Frye and constructed as a play within a play, the production used scenes culled from Simon Halkin’s Hebrew translation of The Merchant of Venice together with transitional scenes, created mostly through improvisation and discussion between director and cast. Frye’s metatheatrical approach was essentially a modernistic Jewish meditation on the moral problems involved in producing Merchant in shadow of the Holocaust.

What eventually emerged was a script based on Shakespearean’s text with added dramatized discussions about the play’s meaning and relevance to Jews at that particular moment in history. The discussion sessions explore such issues as suitable performance style, Shakespeare’s own attitude toward Jews, the symbolic nature of Shylock, anti-Semitism, the Holocaust, contemporary Jewish identity, and the complexity of self-definition. The script was never published and is located in Frye’s personal papers located at Tel-Aviv University.

In my presentation I will discuss the creative process of this unique theatrical experiment within the historical moment of its creation and will examine the many questions it raised and tried to resolve.