The Merchant of Venice: John Douglas Thompson and Arin Arbus in conversation with Ayanna Thompson (Part III of IV): The Women 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 Arin, I was wondering if you could talk about some of the women in the play and how you're staging them in this production?

ARIN ARBUS The women are really alone in this world. I'm not thinking of Portia and Nerissa as besties, which is a legit way to stage it. But we are emphasizing the fact that Nerissa is employed by Portia. And in this production, Portia is a Latinx woman, Nerissa's a Black woman. So, Portia's racism against the Prince of Morocco is particularly pointed, or I hope heard or felt, because of Nerissa's identity and reaction.

Yesterday, we were looking at the scene where Portia gives the keys to Lorenzo and Jessica. And I was sort of pushing Isabel [Ariza], who's playing Portia, to be disrespectful to Jessica. Because I think Portia is anti-Semitic and I think Jessica's experience in Belmont is terrible. And Isa was like, "I think that's not necessary. I just want to be nice to her. She's another woman and she's here - I just want to..." And it's just not - that's not the play. In addition to dealing with anti-Semitism and racism and xenophobia, I think the play is also dealing with misogyny and patriarchy. And they all find themselves trapped within these systems or issues.

AYANNA THOMPSON And unable to imagine other systems.

ARIN ARBUS Yeah, and at time enforcing the same old systems.

AYANNA THOMPSON Oh, absolutely. Even when they feel as if they're transgressing through crossdressing, et cetera, it's just to shore up the same system. It's a remarkable play for the characters' lack of creativity. I think about other Shakespeare comedies where the young people are running off to the woods and having a goodtime. Think about Midsummer Night's Dream, they're breaking the rules, imagining swapping lovers. Merchant is a whole bunch of people who cannot think their way into a new world, right?

ARIN ARBUS That's so beautifully put.

AYANNA THOMPSON For me, one of the most heartbreaking lines, John, is when Shylock talks about the turquoise ring from Leah, his wife, and the fact that his daughter has traded it for a monkey.

JOHN DOUGLAS THOMPSON A monkey, yeah. I think it gives a new level of understanding of Shylock to those that are listening, if it's heard. Of the kind of man he was. It gives credence to this back story that he was happily married. He loved his wife and he still remembers the days when he was courting her, so to speak, his bachelor days when he met her, and this wonderful exchange that was given from one to another. And the fact that it
wasn’t valued enough by his daughter to say, “Okay, no, not that ring. That ring is really important for my mom who’s no longer here and definitely for my father. We cannot sell that. Sell everything else, but not the ring.”

So, it also makes me feel like, “Oh, she was in such a mood that she didn’t know what she was doing.” I get the feeling—I have to as a father—[that] she was led by some other people. I know my daughter wouldn’t do this on her own. So, it expresses who Shylock was back then and who he is now. And the fact that he still loves his daughter: “How could she have done this, how could she have hurt me in that way? She must not have known.” So, yeah, I think about it as a really interesting thing to say for Shylock and his [marriage], but it also hints to my connection to my daughter.

AYANNA THOMPSON And of course, it sets up this odd parallel, where we have Portia, who's apparently abiding by the will of her father, and Jessica, who's breaking the will of her father, right?

JOHN DOUGLAS THOMPSON Because I don't know why she does what she does, running off with a Christian and becoming a Christian - I still almost can't believe that. I almost feel she was forced into that. There's a part of me that is mad at her for this, but another part [believes] that she was led astray by the people that have been persecuting us forever. And of course, under that level of pressure, yes, she did something really wrong. But if I could get her back, if I could get her back... and maybe she wants to come back. So, that's the backstory in my mind. It's not about her leaving me, it's about her almost making her way back to me, so I have to find her. I have to find her.

It is an amazing line for the fact that it does give people this insight into, maybe, the romantic Shylock. Because I do feel like he's really alone. He's so alone. Without anyone to reach out to, particularly after his daughter is gone.

AYANNA THOMPSON His isolation is so palpable, and the fact that he is a widower. And as you say, we get that one glimpse into the past life. You realize, what was that play? What was the play when Shylock and Leah...?

JOHN DOUGLAS THOMPSON Their courting, their romance. I do feel it was a happy relationship. I want to believe that it was. And it's gone.

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.