The Merchant of Venice: John Douglas Thompson and Arin Arbus in conversation with Ayanna Thompson (Part I of IV): The Making Of Merchant

AYANNA THOMPSON is a Regents Professor of English at Arizona State University and the Director of the Arizona Center for Medieval & Renaissance Studies (ACMRS). Bio continues at interview end.

This interview was originally published in Theatre for a New Audience's 360 Viewfinder: The Merchant of Venice. Copyright 2022 by Theatre for a New Audience, all rights reserved.

Midway through rehearsals for Theatre for a New Audience (TFANA)'s 2022 production of The Merchant of Venice, Ayanna Thompson of TFANA's Council of Scholars (and a consulting scholar on the production) spoke with director Arin Arbus and actor John Douglas Thompson.

AYANNA THOMPSON What was the genesis of this production? I know you two have worked together several times over the years. When did this first percolate up to the surface? And what were your initial thoughts about it?

JOHN DOUGLAS THOMPSON It started with - we did Othello together, what was that? 2008?

ARIN ARBUS 2008 and '09, yeah.

JOHN DOUGLAS THOMPSON And there was a point in time, maybe four or five years ago, I was interested in doing it again. Or doing a production of Othello with some similar cast, just taking another shot at it. And that wasn't able to happen. And then we - partially me and partially Jeffrey [Horowitz, TFANA Artistic Director] and partially Arin - we came up with this idea, "Well, what about Merchant of Venice? What about Shylock?" And it was something that I'd been interested in playing because I had played it before, but like 25 years ago. And there's a similarity in character, to me, between Othello and Shylock in the nature of their otherness.

AYANNA THOMPSON And Arin, what attracted you to that proposition?

ARIN ARBUS I think it's a really good role for John. I was really excited by the idea, just in terms of embodying the person who says the words that are in this play. I could immediately imagine John being great. I also didn't know what it would mean to have a Black man in that role. And that was exciting to me. So, I was immediately really intrigued by the idea.

AYANNA THOMPSON And what do you think the production brings to this moment in 2022? Why do you think this is an important play for us to return to now?

ARIN ARBUS I find this to be one of Shakespeare's ugliest plays. I think it's a world filled with hate and intolerance. And I think the play's an indictment of capitalism and the cages that capitalism puts individuals in and the hierarchies. And unfortunately, it feels very close to the world that we live in.

And we are setting the production in - every time I try and say it, I giggle a little bit, I'm a little bit embarrassed - but we're setting the production in the near future. Just because there are such specific circumstances in the play that are a little different from our world. And yet, I can imagine a world in which, in America, there is a literal ghetto with a wall that Jews are forced to live in, in a couple of years.

And it seemed exciting and important to have the company reflect the world that we live in. So, it's a racially diverse cast.

AYANNA THOMPSON John, what is it like to play a Black Jewish character, in the near future, in which there is a walled ghetto?

JOHN DOUGLAS THOMPSON Afrofuturism. (laughter) No -

AYANNA THOMPSON Afropessimism. (laughter)

JOHN DOUGLAS THOMPSON What was exciting to me was, obviously, we live in a world where there is a Jewish struggle that, to me, is similar to the Black struggle. There is anti-Blackness and there is also anti-Semitism. So, having me be that figure, kind of representing both - because there's a lot of intersectionality, I think, between those two struggles - was kind of exciting.

Shylock is, in my mind, a proxy for the other, if you will. Whether that other is Black, whether that other is immigrant, whether that other is based upon gender, whether that other is based upon sex, whether that other is based upon religion, culture... Shylock, for me, represents all those others. And I feel that we do live in this world where large groups of people, different people, are being persecuted for their differences. And this allows me on some activist level, to speak to that as an actor. Just some little actor trying to speak to some of the bigger issues of the world. Shakespeare, for me, does that. So, to be a participant, being Shylock as a Black Jew, enables me to bring that message.

The idea of having a very diverse cast that looks like the communities that we live in was also important. Because oftentimes, when you do these kinds of plays, you just don't see that, right? It's often binary, right? It's Black and white or maybe just all white, which is sometimes even more challenging because then it's making a larger statement that other people aren't really necessary, or wanted, or valued in this world. So, this level of diversity, and having it look like the world that we live in, gives value and credence to all these other types of people.

So, that's what makes it feel right to me. It's not as if I wanted to say, "This has got to be done from a Black Jew's sole perspective." That is the touchstone, but there's much more to address. And if I can address it specifically, then the play can speak universally, if that makes any sense.

AYANNA THOMPSON Isn't that what August Wilson said? That the way to universality is through specificity?

JOHN DOUGLAS THOMPSON And singular specificity, this level of religious persecution that is forced by the Christians against the Jews. That level of specificity, or that lens, allows a wider scope to be addressed, I think.

AYANNA THOMPSON And I think it's fantastic that you are now entering into a line that's not very long of Black actors who've played Shylock - but maybe this will be a tipping point? We have Ira Aldridge, who famously incorporated performances of Merchant of Venice into his touring shows in Eastern Europe. And we have Paul Butler in Peter Sellars' [1994 production at the Goodman] and maybe a handful of others. But you will be the first on a major New York stage. So, does that mean something to you as well? Or is that something that you don't think about?

JOHN DOUGLAS THOMPSON

I don't think about it a lot. I do think about it some. And it's meaningful. It's really about passing the torch. Because I know some other actors, like the great late Johnny Lee Davenport, who was kind of a mentor to me, who did [the role] many, many years ago. I met him at Shakespeare & Company and he talked to me about the role and that performance and what that meant to him.

But it is my hope that by doing this we will see a female Shylock, we'll see an Asian Shylock, a Latinx Shylock. Because the role is there for everyone. And thinking of Judaism as purely white, when there are so many non-white Jews... hopefully my performance can be the beginning of that opening and we can start to look at this role in a diverse nature, as it should be looked at, certainly in the 21st century.

AYANNA THOMPSON is the author of Blackface (Bloomsbury, 2021), Shakespeare in the Theatre: Peter Sellars (Arden Bloomsbury, 2018), Teaching Shakespeare with Purpose: A Student-Centred Approach, co-authored with Laura Turchi (Arden Bloomsbury, 2016), Passing Strange: Shakespeare, Race, and Contemporary America (Oxford University Press, 2011) and Performing Race and Torture on the Early Modern Stage (Routledge, 2008). She wrote the new introduction for the revised Arden3 Othello (Arden, 2016) and is the editor of The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare and Race (Cambridge University Press, 2021), Weyward Macbeth: Intersections of Race and Performance (Palgrave, 2010), and Colorblind Shakespeare: New Perspectives on Race and Performance (Routledge, 2006). She is currently collaborating with Curtis Perry on the Arden4 edition of Titus Andronicus.

In 2020, Thompson became a Shakespeare Scholar in Residence at The Public Theatre in New York. In 2021, she joined the boards of the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Folger Shakespeare Library, the National Parks Arts Foundation, and Play On Shakespeare. Previously, she served as the President of the Shakespeare Association of America, one of Phi Beta Kappa's Visiting Scholars, a member of the Board of Directors for the Association of Marshall Scholars, and a member of the Woolly Mammoth Theatre board.