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Shylock - Text fragments To this I witness call the fools of Time,
William Shakespeare "The scene is a huge, empty hangar, more like the sinister main hall of a slaughter-house than like a theatre. There is also on the floor a large puddle, reddish and oblong – it seems to be blood – whose reflections create a strange iridescence on the walls. A man, let us call him the Director, is sitting at the center of the room and reading a book: Shakespeare, The Complete Works. Behind him, in the dark, sporadic sabres of light reveal only a few objects, more similar to visions than to concrete images: beds, piles of books, several scales of different dimensions, rubble, clothes, small butchers' blocks, shoes, an electronic display from the Stock Exchange, the model of a sail-boat whose sails are being moved by an electric fan, blood-red graffiti on the wall which reads: Which is the merchant here and which is the Jew? There is also a subliminal sound-scape made of sounds of water, voices, barking dogs. A female voice singing something sweet, sensual and vaguely repetitive in Yiddish, is also heard. A light illuminates and reveals the woman singing. She's dressed as a nurse. Slowly, she approaches the Director and places a microphone before him. She then smiles at him provokingly and returns to her place. MALE VOICE, Far-eastern Good day, Maestro, may we ask you a few questions? A spotlight now shines on the Director and accentuates his silhouette. Other lights reveal further human presences in outline, seated here and there, laying on the beds. DIRECTOR Haven't you heard that I'm a grumpy old man,, and totally indifferent to the function of the press? FEMALE VOICE, American (whispering) Come on, Maestro.... Why this gloom? You have become unrecognizable... DIRECTOR In sooth, I know not why I am so sad. It wearies me, you say it wearies you, but how I caught it, found it, or came by it, what stuff 'tis made of, whereof it is born, I am to learn; and such a want-wit sadness makes of me that I have much ado to know myself. Do you recognize these lines? FEMALE VOICE, American Maestro, you would have me fall into one of your famous traps...but you can't succeed, I've been in this business for forty years. Of course! These are the first lines of the play, Antonio. You haven't completely lost your sense of humor...but you are saddened...admit it! DIRECTOR I hold the world but as the world, a stage where every man must play a part, and mine a sad one.(...) |
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