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The scheme of things in ArnoldWesker's the merchantAnn‐Mari Hedbäck a

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The Scheme of Things in Arnold Wesker'sThe MerchantANN-MARI HEDBÄCKUniversity of Uppsala

Jake: Use history, don't imitate it.(Their Very Own and Golden City, I.vi)

"The Merchant of Venice", claimed Harley Granville-Barker in his preface to theplay, "is a fairy-tale. There is no more reality in Shylock's bond and the Lord ofBelmont's will than in Jack and the Beanstalk".1 It was on this basis that heformulated his ideas for producing the play. To the Elizabethan audience, however,the drama of the trial of the Jew had a certain topicality, since only a few yearsbefore the first performance of Shakespeare's play they had seen a Jew tried andsentenced to death for his alleged part in a plot against the Queen.2 To our post-warsensibilities, the story has a painful renewed topicality, and Granville-Barker'swords of 1930 that "there is little difficulty in the play's production, once its form isrecognized, its temper felt, the tune of its verse and the rhythm of its prose rightlycaught" have an innocent pre-war ring.3

The delicacy of a modern production of Shakespeare's comedy was one of thestarting-points for the recreation of the pound-of-flesh story by Arnold Wesker in hisplay The Merchant.4 Where Shakespeare's play is acted out against the reportedsplendours of Venice, Wesker, as we shall see, had "used history" to suggest hisvision of what Shylock in his play loves to talk of as "the scheme of things" inhistory in general and that of the Venetian republic in general. Such a presentation ofthe fable in the context of the historical process reminds us of the method suggestedby Brecht for the production of older plays, where historicity was a key word. WhenThe Merchant had its world première in Stockholm in 1976, Staffan Roos, thedirector, took a very different approach from that of Granville-Barker to Shake-speare's play. As Roos reports in a commentary on the Stockholm production, he sawa parallel between the Venetian Jews, who were invited only to perform a functionodious to the Christians, but necessary both for the economy of the private citizensin Venice and for the business operations of the Christian merchants, that ofloan-banking, and immigrant workers in Western Europe today.5 He set the playsolidly in a historical frame, allowing the audience to seize its topical significance.

1 Prefaces to Shakespeare, 4 (1930; rpt. London: Batsford Ltd, 1963), p. 99.2 A New Variorum Edition of Shakespeare: The Merchant of Venice, ed. H. H. Furness, (1888:rpt. New York: Dover Publications, Inc, 1964), pp. 395-399.3 Prefaces, p. 134.4 Interview with the dramatist by Ossia Trilling in Dramaten, 59 (1976/77), 6-7. The play isprinted in Adam International Review, 41, Nos. 401-403 (1977/78), 4-68. It will be publishedby Penguin Books later this year.5 The staging of the play in Stockholm is documented in Dramaten, 58 (1976/77), 3-10, and59, pp. 7-10.

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Very different was the American production of Wesker's play directed by JohnDexter, in the first staging of The Merchant in English in the autumn of 1977. It waslooked forward to with much anticipation since it marked the revival of a collabora-tion begun when Wesker's early plays were staged at the Royal Court, betweenWesker, Dexter, and Jocelyn Herbert, designer of scenery and costumes. In aninterview before the opening of the play on Broadway Dexter explained that hepreferred to work "with strong physical limitations" and that he saw The Merchantas the "simple, straightforward telling of a story".6 Indeed there was little in thesmooth and rather elegant setting to support the documentary character of the newplay. As will be described below, the play which was brought to Broadway was acompact version, which did not fully carry out the dramatist's intentions, and beforeprinting the play Wesker has corrected the text after what he terms "the New Yorkexperience".

Discussing "Wesker's Quest for Values" in an article in the issue of Adamcontaining the text oí The Merchant, Peter Bowering analyses the way in which inhis later plays Wesker returns to themes already found in his earlier work, restatingthem "in the light of experience".7 Bowering is also concerned with the change oftechnique from the naturalistic sequence of causes and effects of the early plays tothe more poetic structure of The Four Seasons, The Friends, and The Old Ones. TheOld Ones, as the critic points out, is Wesker's "most plotless play" but he argues thatthe dramatist has been successful in his effort to build a dramatic structure from an"elaborate counterpoint of character, scene, and dialogue". Wesker has worked witha similar technique in The Merchant, building up the scenes from "blocked pas-sages" of dialogue of changing mood and tempo. In this play, however, he also has astory to tell, and as is evident from the revisions in'the various drafts, which thedramatist has kindly lent for my use, Wesker has tried different approaches in orderto find the right balance between "the thematic story" on the one hand, and the fableon the other. A study of the drafts preceding the first performances of the play and ofthe changes made in the texts of the early productions prior to the printing will enableus to learn more about the answer to a question put to Wesker in an interview inTheatre Quarterly, in which his later work is discussed.8 The question was: "Howmuch, in fact, do the practical, staging aspects influence you while you are writ-ing?", and the interviewers conclude "from the difficulty with which Wesker talks ofthe more technical aspects of his work" that his is a "more instinctive approach tothe craft of play writing". In answer to the interviewers' question whether he wouldbe interested in working in a situation "in which the actors are also involved to someextent in the creative process" Wesker made clear that while he is not able to"collaborate with actors in working out what" he wants to say, he finds such acollaboration natural when it comes to "finding the best production approach" to his

6 Peter G. Davis, "Energizing Broadway with One Hand and the Met with the Other", NewYork Times, 30 Oct. 1977, Sec. 2, p. 1, col. 5, cont. p. 22, cols. 1-2.7 Nos. 401-403 (1977/78), 69-85.8 Arnold Wesker, "A Sense of What Should Follow", Theatre Quarterly, 28 (1977/78), 5-24.

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ideas. A study of the making of The Merchant shows that the final shape of the playis clearly the decision of the playwright, but also that he has listened with a sensitiveear at least to the suggestions of the directors for changes increasing the dramaticefficiency of his play.

That a certain amount of collective effort has been part of the creative process isevidenced by the dedication of the play to the students in the 'contemporary drama'class of Boulder's Summer School at the University of Colorado. Commenting onthe preparations for The Merchant in the playbill for the American productionWesker describes how the writing was preceded by a great deal of research into thehistorical background "of the Jews in Venice, the Jews in Italy, the Jews in England;and about the Renaissance". The drama students "gathered the first informationabout source material, wrote papers, prodded, questioned and finally found theycould support my approach".

Two lines by the Polish poetess Wislawa Szymborska are quoted before thebeginning of the play. "I do not use despair, for it is not mine, / only entrusted to mefor safe-keeping". That despair was there among the Venetian Jews is amply de-monstrated by the records. Cecil Roth, in whose books on Jewish history Weskerhas found a rich fund of information, describes how the Jews, who had been settlersin various parts of Italy from very early days as artisans and merchants, werebanished when the mercantile republics began to feel the competition from theJewish traders.9 These were then expelled from Genoa, Florence, and Venice, andthey were only allowed to return to be money-lenders. "Thus", says Roth, "thereemerged the paradoxical situation that the Italian cities, which had for so longexcluded Jews who were engaged in blameless walks of life, threw their gates openeagerly to those who had to earn their living in this unlovable and unloved fash-ion".10 It was in Venice in 1516 that the Jews were first forced to live together in theirown quarter, on an island earlier known as the Ghetto Nuovo, the New Foundry.This was the first ghetto. Against the background of this ever-present discrimina-tion, rendered more severe from time to time by the outburst of a wave of religiousfeeling among the Christians and ensuing attacks on the lives and properties of theJews, there can be drawn, as Roth describes, a picture of an active and wide-rangingparticipation of the Jewish communities in the cultural development of their envi-ronment. It is this positive achievement that Arnold Wesker has chosen to recreatein his drama.

One of the redeeming aspects of money-lending, as pointed out by Roth, was thatts was not a full-time occupation but afforded time for other occupations, such asstudying. We should not be surprised, then, that when the play opens we seeShylock, the loan-banker, occupied by cataloguing his books in the company of hisfriend Antonio, Christian merchant and patrician. Shylock is a typical representative

9 Since his account of the Jews in Venice (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society ofAmerica, 1930), Roth has published many books on Jewish history. Those published prior to1959 are listed in his Jews in the Renaissance (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society ofAmerica, 1959), p. 381.10 The Jews in the Renaissance, p. 7.

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of the scholarly loan-banker of whom we can read in Jews in the Renaissance.11 Norwas it only in Italy that the Jews surrounded themselves with learning. In an essaydescribing "A Day in the Life of a Medieval English Jew", Roth makes the point that"There was probably not very much to distinguish the Jewish from the non-Jewishhome at this time except one thing. In the average Jewish home, such as MasterBenedict's, there were books . . . In the average non-Jewish home, books wereunknown".12

Also such a thing as the friendship between Antonio, the Christian, and Shylock,the Jew, is a well-documented phenomenon in Renaissance Italy. One of the best-known instances mentioned by Roth, is that of Pico della Mirándola, who sought theacquaintance of the Jewish scholar Elijah del Medigo in order to have access toHebrew texts containing interpretations of Aristotelian philosophy not available inLatin. Del Medigo became the friend and teacher of other notable Christians, such asDomenico Grimani, later Cardinal of St. Marco in Venice, before returning to hisnative Crete.13

In an article on Shakespeare's Jew, "The Background of Shylock", based onresearch for his book on the history of the Jews in Venice, Roth established that, hadthere been a Shylock, he would have been of German origin, since the occupation ofmoney-lending, together with that of dealing in second-hand clothes, were exclusivefor the Natione Tedesca, the Jews of the German "nation" living in the GhettoNuovo.lt Wesker identifies his loan-banker as Shylock Kölner, born in Venice,with grandparents having come from Cologne as "small-time money lenders for thepoor". His parents, as he explains to the Christians in Antonio's house, dealt insecond-hand clothing. Wesker's Shylock is a book collector and a scholar, engagedin a number of cultural and humanistic activities. He is active in the building of a newsynagogue for the Spanish Marranos in Venice, not only contributing money butdiscussing the plans with the architect and suggesting artistic improvements, and hehas a portrait painted of his family by Moses da Castelazzo, a wellknown painter.15

Among the refugee Portuguese Marranos he is known as a person to whom they canturn for help in their flight from the Inquisition in their home country. Wesker bringstwo Marranos, or Anusim, as he prefers to call them in the final text, on the stage,one of them a historical person, Solomon Usque, playwright and poet, the other awoman by the name of Rebecca Mendes who has borrowed traits from an outstand-ing Jewish woman of the Renaissance period, Gracia Nasi, or Mendes, of the greatPortuguese banking family. She organised the escape of a great number of Marranos,setting up places of refuge in different parts of Italy.

11 P. 34.12 Essays and Portraits in Anglo-Jewish History (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Societyof America, 1962), p. 37.13 The Jews in the Renaissance, p. 112 ff.14 Review of English Studies, 9 (1933), 148-156.15 The Marranos were Spanish and Portuguese descendants of baptized Jews, suspected ofsecret adherence to Judaism. In their flight from the Inquisition they escaped to Italy, NorthAfrica, and especially Turkey. In the final text Wesker has substituted the Hebrew designation"Anusim" (coerced) for that of the Spanish "Marranos".

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In the same way as Wesker has given Shylock a new identity and placed him andhis family in the Jewish ghetto in a historical perspective, he has recreated Antonio,Bassanio, Lorenzo, and Graziano out of such members of the ruling class of Ven-etian patricians as we may read of in accounts of the life in the republic at the time.Wesker professes in his Acknowledgments to have "raided continually" such anaccount, The Imperial Age of Venice: 1380-1580 by D. S. Chambers.16 The title ofthe book, as the author explains in the introduction, implies a begging of the questionraised in the heading of the first chapter: "Another New Rome?", and it is stated atthe outset that the equation of the Venetian Republic with the Roman Empire, whichwas a favourite theme both among local patriots and admiring visitors will be foundto be a false one.

The discussion carried on by Chambers is reflected in several passages in the play.The question whether Venice is a second Rome is argued in a scene at Antonio'sdinner-table, I.vii, by Shylock, Bassanio, Graziano, and Lorenzo. The clearsighted-ness of a latter-day historian is given to Antonio, who protests against the Imperialclaims of the young patricians that "Venice as a second Rome is such nonsense.We're a commercial enterprise and no more".

Antonio in Wesker's play is associated with the Querini family, of which we readin Chambers' book that it "belonged to the 'true ancient nobility' of the seventh andeighth centuries".17 However, as Chambers points out, one reason why many Ven-etian patricians were happy to pose as new Romans was that their claims to nobilityrested on rather shaky grounds. The ancestors of even the oldest families werefishermen, a fact for which they were scoffed at by nobles of other states. Theparallel with Rome brought with it flattering suggestions of a Roman descent. The"anxious" question of Venetian nobility is argued in a scene in Antonio's warehouse,I.v, by Bassanio, Lorenzo, and Graziano, all eager to establish their superior statusas patricians. Antonio, on the other hand, is indifferent to his position as a memberof the Greater Council, the ruling body of the much admired Venetian constitution,telling the Duke in the Court scene: "I've lost my appetite for the intrigues andboredom of administration."

Wesker makes Bassanio a member of the Visconti family, which suggests aconnection with the city of Milan. Members of the Visconti family ruled that city inseveral periods in the 15th century. The dramatist makes Bassanio out to be the sonof a Venetian patrician, an old friend of Antonio's who has moved to Milan. Bassaniohas lived there all his life and has never met Antonio who is his godfather. In makingBassanio Antonio's godson, Wesker has followed the novella by Ser Giovanni,which is believed to have been Shakespeare's source for the bond story.18 In thenovella the young man wooing the beautiful lady of Belmonte is provided by hisgodfather Ansaldo with the means for approaching her. Wesker's Antonio agrees tolending money not, like Ansaldo in the novella, out of love for his godson, of whom

16 (London: Thames and Hudson, 1970).17 Ibid., p. 86.18 The Merchant of Venice, Variorum ed., pp. 297-305.

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the merchant is rather suspicious, but in memory of his early friendship with thefather. Bassanio tells Antonio of the fascinating Portia Contarini, whose father lefther mistress of several estates which have, however, been ruined by neglect. Hemakes it clear that he considers himself to be the right man to get those estates backinto shape and make them profitable. We are never convinced that he has fallen inlove with the mistress of the estates. Neither is Portia deceived in the casket scenebut realizes that it is Bassanio's calculating brains rather than his heart that rejoicewhen he wins the riddle game.

Lorenzo is given the family name Pisani. Members of this family had distinguishedthemselves as soldiers, diplomats, and church leaders, but in his play Weskersuggests that Lorenzo belongs to a family of silk manufacturers. He is introducedby Bassanio as an old friend, a "sort of philosopher" who "writes poetry occasional-ly". This character is one on whom the dramatist has worked in the later drafts togive him sharper contours, and in the final version he is a kind of Savonarola,preaching constancy to religious principles.

Graziano is identified by the dramatist as belonging to the "long", i.e. ancient,family of Sañudo. He is employed by Antonio as his assistant, being, as he admitshimself "an academic failure . . . apprenticed to trade". He is happy in his ignorance,but none of the patricians have any patience with him, Antonio complaining that"He's of an order of insensitivity I find unbearable. He bends so with the wind,quickly rushing to agree with the next speaker".

Chambers establishes that the love of liberty professed by the Venetians did notimply an acceptance of female equality in intellectual capacity or in governmentalmatters. He calls the women of Venice "the dupes of Venetian pride and hypocrisy",recording the complaint of one woman with a talent for writing that she was mockedin the city for her learned ambitions. A few women who achieved a certain amount ofrenown for their learning were courtesans of a "superior" standing.19 Portia Conta-rini of Wesker's play, who has been given a good education by her father and is anindependent mistress of the estates which he left, is thus by no means typical of theVenetian women of the period. She is indeed, as she tells Nerissa when we first meether, "the new-woman-and-they-know-me-not", and she takes this quality, ratherthan her potential riches, to be what attracts so many wooers. Her family name isone that we come across often in accounts of the Venetian patriciate, but as Bassaniosays when he stands musing before the caskets "by the time the blood of rulersreached her father it had been watered down to the blood of a philosopher". This iswhat explains the father's eccentric way of providing Portia with some of the finestscholars of the time for teaching her mathematics, history, Greek, philosophy, andHebrew, and also his manner of choosing a husband for her by means of the caskets.Portia passes the learning she has acquired on to Nerissa, and the emancipation ofPortia, as well as Jessica and Nerissa, from the domination by the men surroundingthem, which is evident at the end of the play, is largely the result of their beinginitiated into the world of learning. It is significant that Portia Contarini does not

19 Chambers, pp. 136-139.

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dress up as a man in order to gain entrance to the court. In answer to Jessica'squestion, before they leave Belmont, if women are granted entry to the courts, Portiaproudly asserts that "they'll grant these women entry to the courts".

Wesker has thus found an abundance of historical material of relevance to hisapproach to the play, and as may be seen in the early drafts he originally includedmore material than he could finally use.20 In these drafts he has indicated certainpassages as possible cuts. "The difference", the author notes in a comment preced-ing the second, third, and fourth versions, "is slight". While he kept the passage thusmarked in I.iv, in which Solomon Usque and Rebecca Mendes list the victims of thePortuguese autos-da-fé,21 the story of Abraham Cordorso later in the same scene hasbeen cut, as has also some other anecdotal material. We may also see that Weskerhas done some experimenting to adjust the balance between the documentarymaterial and the plot. In the final form the first act sets the stage for the casket storyand for that of the pound of flesh, but the main dramatic impact of the first act is in itspresentation of other thematic material, such as the friendship between the Gentileand the Jew, the decline of Venetian trade, the precarious situation of the Jews inVenice and elsewhere, and the "new woman" of the Renaissance. Most of the plot issaved for the second act. Such a build-up may have its hazards with an audiencewhich is waiting to see the enacting of the familiar story. However, as Weskerhimself pointed out in a comment on the episodical form of The Old Ones, he wantsto write a play where the drama does not only take place on the stage "away from anaudience", but one in which the spectators are brought to react to the drama of eachseparate scene.22 That such an involvement of the audience existed also in Wesker'searlier work was pointed out by Ronald Bryden, who noted in his introduction toTheir Very Own and Golden City that "the audiences at a Wesker play aren't likeother London theatre audiences . . . They've come to be inspired".23

For an audience in this frame of mind there is a good deal of drama also in the firstact of The Merchant. In the short first scene, set in Shylock's study, we areintroduced to Shylock and Antonio, old friends, in the process of cataloguing booksand manuscripts which have been hidden for ten years. As Shylock enthusiasticallyreads out the titles of his treasures for Antonio to copy down, the merchant expres-ses discontent with his life. He is "weary with trade", fed up with the business ofbuying and selling which has filled his life until he met Shylock. He has caughtShylock's avidity for learning. In the next scene, also a brief one, the two old menare replaced on the stage by two young women, Portia and Nerissa. They, too, are

20 The first typewritten text of 19 May 1975 was followed by six later versions, typewritten androneoed, the seventh and last draft dated 22 October 1977 to 24 January 1978. The fifth draft,dated 22 May 1976 was the basis for the Stockholm production. The sixth text was that of theAmerican production, and the seventh draft, on which the first printed text is based, containsthe "corrected" text after the Broadway production.21 According to a report by Staffan Roos in Dramaten, 58, pp. 3-6, of a conversation withWesker before the Stockholm production, the dramatist, when writing this passage, had inmind a similar catalogue in Chicken Soup with Barley, I.i, of volunteers killed in the SpanishCivil War, which had been effectively staged by Dexter.22 Arnold Wesker, "From a Writer's Notebook", Theatre Quarterly, 6 (1972), 8-13.23 New English Dramatists 10 (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books Ltd, 1967), pp. 10-11.

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rediscovering old territory, at Belmont, where Portia has decided to take up agricul-ture rather than stay in Venice, whose trade is declining. As Portia inspects theneglected rooms of her childhood, her energetic presentation of her plans arepunctuated by Nerissa's questioning of her lady's fitness for the new life sheproposes. Among the odd objects in the house are the caskets. After a short return inI.iii to Shylock's study, where Shylock and Antonio relax at night over glasses ofwine, the cataloguing being finished and Shylock indulging in his favourite pastimeof story-telling, a longer scene, I.iv, presents the bustling life in Shylock's house thenext morning. We meet Jessica, his sister Rivka, and Tubal, his business partner.They are joined by Roderigues de Cunha, a young architect in the Ghetto, and soonalso by Rebecca Mendes and Solomon Usque, who take refuge in Shylock's house.The bustle subsides as the Jewish characters leave the stage to Antonio and thenewly arrived Bassanio. As Bassanio leaves, having told Antonio about Portia andmade his demand for the three thousand ducats, Shylock returns and at his friend'srequest reluctantly agrees to draw up a bond for the loan of the ducats in compliancewith the laws of Venice. The scene ends on a note of joyful hospitality as Jessica,Rivka, and Roderigues enter with food, and the household, including Rebecca,Solomon, and Antonio, sit down to have a meal together. The remaining threescenes of the act, I.v, I.vi and I.vii, illustrate the tension, on the one hand inShylock's house between father and daughter, Jessica being impatient withShylock's overbearing paternal attitude, and on the other between the young patri-cians, Bassanio, Lorenzo, and Graziano, and the Jew. The act ends in a crescendo ofwords as Shylock delivers a lesson on "the scheme of things" in the history of theVenetian republic at Antonio's dinnertable.

In the second act the stories of the caskets and of the pound of flesh are picked upas we move from the casket scene in II.i; to the meeting of Jessica and Lorenzo inIl.ii after her elopement; to Belmont where Jessica is received by Portia in II.iv; tothe Courtroom in II. v; and to Belmont again in II. vi. One scene of reflection on thesituation is interposed between the meeting of the young lovers and their arrival inBelmont; in Il.iii we return to Shylock's study where Rivka takes her brother to taskfor having placed himself in an impossible situation, staking his friendship withAntonio against his loyalties to his fellow-Jews.

The first draft of The Merchant while having a two-act structure like the finalversion, contained one scene which was removed before production. This was ascene at Belmont, inserted as I.vi, in which Nerissa tells Portia the story of a youngman whose father provided him with a richly furnished ship so that he could seek hisfortune in Alexandria. On his way there he was told of a beautiful widow living on anisland passed by the ship, and he decided to try his luck there rather than in Egypt.This lady had "ruined many a suitor", promising him her hand if he would lie withher and please her well. If he failed, his ship would be forfeit. By drugging thesuitors, so that they slept through the night, thus failing to please her, she had so farbeen able to keep the ships and send the suitors away. This is the beginning of SerGiovanni's story of the wooing of the Lady of Belmonte. In The Merchant of VeniceShakespeare substituted the casket story for that of the nightly trial told in the

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novella. Wesker has retained the caskets, but when Nerissa relates this story shesuggests that it happened to Bassanio before he became Portia's suitor. Portia doesnot quite believe in the story and calls it a "washer woman's tale". Indeed it has littlerelevance for the drama and in the end Wesker evidently deemed it superfluous anddiscarded it together with other anecdotal material, as mentioned earlier.

In the second draft Wesker rearranged the play into three acts, the new first actbeing made up of scenes one to four in the earlier draft, and ending with theargument between Shylock and Antonio about the drawing up of the bond. The newsecond act contained the seven subsequent scenes, the last scene being the earlierIl.iii opening with Rivka's admonitions to her brother. At the end of this sceneWesker added a new passage in the three-act version, in which Shylock and Antoniodiscuss the coming trial. This passage forms a pendant to that which concludes thefirst act in this version, and the dramatic effect of the bond was made stronger by theinsistence at the end of the first two acts on its implications. However, before thefirst production, the dramatist reverted to the two-act form. Shylock's historicalsurvey is indeed a dramatic climax, and as is made explicit in the final text it alsoconstitutes an important development in the thematic structure, and we are broughtwith this ending of the first act to a preliminary conclusion, not of the bond story, butof the question, argued throughout the play, of the basis of power in the Venetianrepublic. The dramatist lifts this matter into prominence by adding, in the finalversion, lines and parts of lines, particularly in the scene in Antonio's warehouse,I.v, and in the final scene of the first act, in Antonio's house, where Shylock tells theyoung patricians: "Let me remind you of three distinct developments affecting thehistory of this extraordinary land of yours and let's see where real power resides."The last clause has been added in the final text. Shylock's conclusion at this point isthat real power lies in knowledge such as that contained in the ancient Greek andRoman texts handed down from Imperial Rome and issued for the first time in printby the famous Aldine Press in Venice. Earlier in the play, in the scene in Antonio'swarehouse, the young patricians argue the matter of power, and in lines added in thelast draft Lorenzo asks: "And where does it [power] lie? In trade or moral princi-ple?" Whereas Lorenzo speaks in favour of religious principle, Bassanio in lines alsomade clearer in the last draft states that "power resides in trade". As the bond storydraws to a conclusion in the second act, Shylock is brought to a new understandingof where real power resides. When, in the Court scene, the Doge tells him that he is"relieved of executing this Venetian bond" Shylock, in a line reworded in the lastdraft, asks: "Does any man have power to release a bond?" This, then, he suggests,is where power ultimately lies, in moral principles, what he calls "universal morali-ty".

There was a major change in the structure of the first act in John Dexter'sAmerican production. In a desire to speed up the tempo four of the scenes in the firstact were amalgamated into two. Thus I,iv, and I.vi, both in Shylock's house, weremerged, and so were I.v (Antonio's warehouse) and I.vii (Antonio's house). AsJoseph Leon, acting the part of Shylock, reported in an interview I had with himwhile the play was in Washington, there was also a continuing process of cutting and

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adjusting lines in order to meet the demand of the New York producers that thelength of the performance must not exceed two hours. The dramatist agreed withgreat reluctance to such a "streamlining" of the play, and in the corrected textWesker has restored the original order of I.iv to I.vii. Instead he has worked on thelast three scenes of the first act in order to add more action on the stage to balancethe talking. In I.v he has added stage directions to specify the activities of the youngpatricians in Antonio's warehouse while they argue the matters of the Jews in Venice,Venetian power politics, and the origin of the Venetian aristocracy. There are "balesof coloured cloth" from which Graziano tries samples on Bassanio "to see whichsuits him", and Lorenzo moves between sacks of spices, plunging his hands in them"the spices trickling through his hands". In I.vi Shylock and his family are sitting fora portrait, and the beginning of the scene is made more lively in the final text inwhich they are not, as in the earlier versions, already sitting there as the sceneopens, but enter, Shylock "with Usque, followed by a bustling Rivka, andRoderigues who is planning to do his own sketch of Jessica". This business ofRoderigues drawing a sketch has been added in the final text, and there is acontrapuntal flow of activities and moods with Castelazzo painting, Usque tellingShylock about his new play, Jessica sulking as Shylock reprimands her for beinglate, and Roderigues trying to capture her anger on his drawing pad.

While Wesker did not retain the changes made in the structure of the first act in theAmerican production, other alterations worked out in Dexter's presentation of theplay have been kept in the final text. One such alteration is the shift in the order inwhich the characters enter in II.ii (The Logetta, St. Mark's). This is a scene in whichJessica and Lorenzo meet outside the Ghetto after she has run away from home, andTubal and Roderigues appear looking for her. In the earlier text, the lovers enter firstand in their dialogue bring out the news of the failure of Antonio's ships. After theyhave left, the two Jewish characters appear and continue the exposition of theimminent catastrophe. In the Broadway version, Tubal and Abtalion da Modenawere the first to enter in this scene to prepare the audience for the news of Jessica'sescape and for that of the threatening trial.24 When Jessica and Lorenzo enter afterthe exit of the Jews, they are given, in the final text, partly new lines to bring outthe warmth of the meeting.

Another scene which received its definite shape in the American production, is theCourt scene. From the Stockholm production the director has reported that hesuggested certain changes in the scene in order to build up a final dramatic climax.25

He gained this effect by postponing the entrance of Portia, Nerissa, and Jessica untilquite late in the scene. In Dexter's production, on the other hand, and in the finaltext, the women remain on the stage after the final lines of the preceding scene, II.iv,in which Portia, at Belmont, announces her decision to attend the trial. There is an

24 Abtalion da Modena, a renowned scholar mentioned in Roth's book on Venice, was includedby the dramatist among the characters in the early productions, as Shylock's tutor. In the finalversion of the play, Abtalion is talked about but does not appear, and Roderigues has takenover his lines in this scene.25 Dramaten, 58, pp. 5-6.

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immediate change of scene to the Courtroom, and as II.v opens "The women turnand sweep into the Courtroom of the Doge's Palace". The climactic moment in thefinal version is when Shylock draws his knife in an outburst of fury caused by thetaunts of the young patricians.

Along with these changes of structure the different drafts give evidence of acontinuous process of revision bearing on all elements of the play.26 An ambition tomake the dialogue more lively and fluent is visible in changes made throughout theplay in the various drafts. Increasing attention is paid to building a rhythmical flow ofshort lines and quick dialogue leading into more massive blocks of lines. To this endlines originally long are often divided between characters and cut down in length.The characters and their relationship are worked on for greater precision. Thus, forinstance, several changes in the drafts establish the friendship between Antonio andShylock more firmly, and the crucial point of the repayment of the bond discussedby the friends in Il.iii is worked over in the later drafts in order to make it absolutelyclear what the situation is. They have struck a "mad" bond but both are agreed thatthe law must have its course.

A look at the list of characters in the various drafts discloses that this has beenmodified during the writing. Rivka was not included in the first list, but Wesker madean insertion as early as in the first draft, adding a dialogue between Rivka andShylock at the beginning of Il.iii. Rivka is the loving but clearsighted relative whospeaks with authority to Shylock about his actions, and she voices the cause of theGhetto. In the final text she has taken over some of the lines of Abtalion da Modena,who no longer appears on the stage. Those of Abtalion's lines not taken over by herare divided between Tubal, Solomon Usque, and Roderigues de Cunha. Roderiguesreappears in the final version after having been cut out in the American production, afew new lines suggesting that he is in love with Jessica. Roderigues is the only youngJewish character beside Jessica, and his presence, and suggested relationship withher, add vivacity to the scenes in the Ghetto.

As we may see, Wesker has indeed worked out the dramatic expression of hisideas from a practical stage situation, and he has included suggestions from the earlyproductions in his final text. It is also apparent that he has insisted on not letting thestory line take precedence over the thematic material. The ideas brought out arerelated to the earlier drama, but may be said to represent, most characteristically,yet another stage in the process of "Wesker's quest for values", discussed by PeterBowering in the article referred to earlier. If The Friends, as Bowering suggests, isthe dramatist's "own variation of the Chekhovian mode", The Merchant could besaid to be constructed according to Wesker's own variation of Brechtian principles,as witness the reference to the historical process, the initial collective analysis ofideas, and the predominantly episodic structuring of the drama. The dialectic ap-proach required by Brecht may be seen to exist on several levels. Beside that

26 Cf. the report of Monica Lauritzen Mannheimer describing a similar process of revision inthe text of The Friends, "Ordering Chaos: The Genesis of Arnold Wesker's The Friends",English Studies, 56 (1975), 34-44.

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proposed in the presentation of the historical material, the "dialectic of feeling", i.e."the tension between joy and despair" which Bowering finds typical of Wesker'swork, is a key mood in The Merchant. Moreover, there is a dialectic embedded ingiving new identities to characters as well established as those of Shakespeare'splay. The new characters and the fresh interpretation of the story inevitably call tomind their counterparts in the earlier play, whether by association or contrast.However, it does not lessen the originality of Wesker's play to note that he hasretained the idea of Antonio's sadness or Jessica's love of music. As is indicated by alook at the titles of some of his earlier work, Roots, I'm Talking about Jerusalem,and The Friends, which name themes also found in the new play, this is a thoroughlyWeskerian play.

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