Reintegrating Sensibility: Situated Knowledges and Embodied Readers
2000; Johns Hopkins University Press; Volume: 31; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1353/nlh.2000.0030
ISSN1080-661X
AutoresDeanne Bogdan, E. James Cunningham, Hilary Davis,
Tópico(s)Theatre and Performance Studies
ResumoIt was over thirty years ago this summer that I, Deanne Bogdan, the senior member of this writing team, sat in the balcony of the theatre of the Canadian Stratford Shakespearean Festival, where I witnessed my very first live performance of The Merchant of Venice. Having studied the play in high school and at university, I had just finished teaching it to first-year secondary school students, and that day I delighted in the powerful springing to life of the characters on stage before me. The role of Shylock was played by the legendary Czech actor Fredric Valk, who electrified his audience with a portrayal of dignity and grandeur. Riveted into silence by the power of Valk’s delivery of the famous “I am a Jew. . . . Hath not a Jew eyes?” speech in Act III, I was presented with another drama of a somewhat different sort: at the conclusion of that soliloquy, a middle-aged man in the fourth row leapt to his feet, fist defiant, uttering a piercingly anguished “No! No! No! . . .” This speech occurs just after Salarino asks Shylock what would be accomplished by insisting upon an actual pound of flesh, whereupon Shylock replies: To bait fish withal: if it will feed nothing else, it will feed my revenge. He hath disgraced me, and hindered me half a million, laughed at my losses, mocked at my gains, scorned my nation, thwarted my bargains, cooled my friends, heated mine enemies; and what’s his reason? I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? hath not
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