The Washington times., 1904-01-04
IrVina'S ShyloCk.
The Great English Actors Conception
of the Role.

Now that Sir Henry Irving has
once more come and gone, and we
have seen him, perhaps for the last
time. in one of his greatest roles, that
of Shylock the Jew, it is perhaps
worth our while to consider, not his
playing of the part, which is perfect,
but his conception of it, as open to
discussion.
The New York theatrical managers
aver that people no longer care for
Shakespeare. Publishers of historical
novels apparently hold that the public
no longer cares for Scott But, after
all, may there not be as much pleas
ure, not to say profit, in an unbiased
study of the king of all dramatists, as
in investigation of The curious themes
Of Maeterlinck and Ibsen7 The
works of Shakespeare and Scott still
sell, at any rate, even If they are not
IL the list of best selling books.
Every great actor who has ever es-
sayed the part of Shylock has had his
own conception of the character
Whether any one of them is exactly
''tne jew that Shakespeare drew" is
question. Irving's Shylock IS proba-
oily very near being the part as it was
played in Shabespeare's time-the I'M
canny, weird, alien creature possessed
Of a spirit of all-consuming revenge.
We must not forget, in considering
this character, the position which the
Jew occupied in the Eiizabethan age.
He was equally hated, feared, and de
spised, and all the terrors which SUI
perstition could invent, all the preju-
dice of race hatred, conspired to make
him the ogre of the drama. One sees
that in every Jew-baiting play by an
Elizabethan writer. Shakespeare
alone dared make him human-how
human, how pathetic, how grand
probably no actor of Shakespeare's
time was broad enough to see.
For this reason the character Of
Sbylock may reasonably be asserted
to be the greatest ever created by
Shakespeare, since in this achievement
he rose above the prejudices Of his
own country and time, broke loose
from the limitations imposed by pub
lie sentiment, and while maxim g the
actions of his Jew grim and horrible
enough to satisfy the popular demand
for iniqmty on the part of the He
brew, revealed the hidden reasons for
these actions, and showed Shylock AZ
the representative of a downtrodden.
oppressed, yet powerful people, mag
ni6eent even in the revelation of his
own terrible scheme of revenge. The
dramatist's intuitive sense of the truth
led him, centuries in advance of his
time, into the recognition OF the COM
zion humanity of Jew and Gentle.
and made his Shyloek at once abso-
lutely true to life and absolutely a
work of the Imagination.
The revengeful bitterness and cum
ming of the jew does not need to be
emphasized by the actor. The situa-
ton brings that out by itself. The ae-
tor who plays Shylock as Shakespeare
conceived him must put his stress on
the passionate human nature Of the
man, on his love for his daughter, on
his suppressed resentment of insul:
and oppression, on the superb sarcasm
IL his assertion of a common humani-
ty. The most despised and downtrod-
den race may find a spokesman who
will voice the eternal Justice in such
accents that the most prejudiced must
get at least a glimmer Of the truth,
and this is what Shylock does in the
court room. Even an Elizabetha
audience. one faneies, must have seer
the jew differently for the moment.
Irving's bent is toward the mys-
FERROUS, the terrible, and the super
natural. His conception of ShylocH
is biased thereby. A great creation
it is not the Shylcek that some actor
will create, some Gay, when it has
been found that the public still care:
for Shakespeare, and "The Merehan
Of Venice" is acted once more as i
should be, IN a manner worthy of per
haps the most beautiful poem anC
most marvellous drama in the Ian
guage.
New York audiences are intellectual