Venetian Vivisection
HE "potted Shakespeare" recordings from the BBC, now making the rounds of the NBS stations, have been getting rather a rough handling in these columns; and indeed several of these have shown signs of timidity in presentation, an unwillingness’ to let Shakespeare have his head for fear of frightening the Average Man away, which has produced some rather lamentable results -a bright Lady Macbeth, a tedious Juliet, a Falstaff (supreme blasphemy)
in kid gloves. However, the Trial Scene from Thé Merchant of Venice does something to redeem the series. The speaking and timing produced a genuine suspense; Antonio really sounded like a man who had a Minor Prophet coming at him with a knife; there was a good Portia and an adequate Shylock, But, really, what a play! "I came to it first as a schoolboy," records Quiller-Couch, "and though I got it by heart I could not love it." An array of unlovable characters: a theme which cannot much appeal, when ail latter-day priggishness is discounted, to the 20th Century; a treatment which veers from the Karloffry of Marlowe’s Jew of Malta to a genuine sympathy and understanding for the splendid old scoundrel, so that one never ‘knows where one is; but worst of all, a coldness and a failure to make the show-pieces anything more than show-pieces.. And this of all the plays is the one most selected for the dejected pupils of primary schools,
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 15, Issue 379, 27 September 1946, Page 10
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239Venetian Vivisection New Zealand Listener, Volume 15, Issue 379, 27 September 1946, Page 10
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