FLOODESIGN

1 The Holocaust could happen in Germany because Central and Eastern Europe were relatively welcoming to Jews, particularly in the 19th century. It is not at all that France or Britain was less anti-Semitic: merely, they had been historically more consistently so. The absence of overt discrimination often hides a history of extermination. 2 What would the Bard have thought of the Rev. Hudson's preface? How would he have taken the reverend's assertion that Shakespeare's female characters are inferior to the male ones, opposing "the false equality of the sexes which has been of late so often and so excruciatingly advocated"? 3 To name just a few. To read these critics, in fact, is to be reminded of how male, white, privileged theater criticism has historically been. Take any woman or person of color to have picked up a pen in the 20th century; chances are they have mentioned something about the power of language and art to oppress us with assumptions of who we are. 4 It is worth noting that one is still allowed to uncritically enjoy "The Iliad." FIVE S H Y L O C K S Michael Rogers Shylock # 4/Morocco Lynda Gravatt Shylock #3/Duke Frank Rodriguez Shylock #2/Arragon Steven Skybell Shylock # 5/Tubal Sorab Wadia Shylock #1/Graziano "Rather than concentrating the dimensions of Shylock on one actor's interpretation, I opened up the character to five actors of different age, size, race, gender, each actor to play one of the five scenes. The point here is not to ignore Shylock's Jewishness or to divide his complex character, but to unlock and unveil the common humanity of his being. Shylock the Jew is also Shylock the immigrant, the other, the stranger. My hope is that the audience will find itself in Shylock." —KARIN COONROD www.peakperfs.org 15

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