Literature is one of my favorite subject even in my elementary days. And in high school when we had Shakespeares' Merchant of Venice as assignment, i would just read those english verses, even when i could not exactly understand them. This morning, at the prescon of TP's Der Kaufmann, Merchant of Venice, Sir Rody Vera, who directed it, explained that this play was made for students, to easier understand what Shakespeare was trying to convey with this, his work. Im sure after seeing this, it will make you realize the truth and relevance of it, is timeless..
Gas chambers. Swastika. Concentration camps. The horror of the holocaust provides a dark backdrop for Tanghalang Pilipino’s third offering for its 27th Season, Der Kaufmann, a retelling of William Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice. A play within a play, Der Kaufmann, relives the horror of the holocaust, with the Nazis directing the Jewish “actors”, underscoring the dehumanizing effect of racism and intolerance, a sharp contrast to the original material, which was first staged by the company during its 17th Season.
According to one of the directors, Mr. Rody Vera, (Tuxqs Rutaquio, co-director) in developing the concept of Der Kaufmann, the homosexual, is also put in the spotlight. The categories of labeling prisoners/outcasts by the Nazis are precise, clear and cruelly clinical. And in this version of play, the gays are not spared -- for to fulfill the ideal world without wimps, stained bloodlines and perverts, that is, the ideal world of Belmont with Portia as its fated and royal purveyor, all dregs and scums will have to be eliminated.
Tanghalang Pilipino’s Der Kaufmann is not meant to condemn any race for atrocities committed in the past, but rather, to underscore the artists’ continuing commitment to advocating respect for human rights, equality, justice, mercy and forgiveness.
The cast is composed of TP’s Actors Company, together with guest artists Tuxqs Rutaquio, Lou Veloso, Tracy Quila and Trixie Esteban. The show will run from September 27 to October 13, 2013 at the Tanghalang Huseng Batute, Cultural Center of the Philippines. Ticket prices are Php600 (Regular) and Php300 (Students). 20% discount on the regular price for senior citizens, government employees, military employees and PWDs. (Please present valid ID)
DER KAUFMANN by Rody Vera
ANG NEGOSYANTE NG VENECIA by Rolando Tinio
MERCHANT OF VENICE by William Shakespeare
Dramaturg: Giselle Garcia
Direction: Rody Vera and Tuxqs Rutaquio
Production Design: Tuxqs Rutaquio
Tagalog Translation: Rolando Tinio
Music & Sound Design: TJ Ramos
Lights Design: John Batalla
Artistic Director: Nanding Josef
The Merchant of Venice was written by William Shakespeare between 1596 and 1598. Though it has been classified as a comedy in his compilation of plays known as the “First Folio”, sharing certain aspects with other romantic comedies, The Merchant of Venice is popularly known for its dramatic scenes and speeches such as “Hath not a Jew’s eyes” and Portia’s speech about the “quality of mercy”.
This play is about a bitter detested Jewish moneylender who seeks revenge against a Christian merchant who has defaulted on a loan. TP’s version will be a departure from the usual interpretation. A play within a play, it will be set during the Holocaust and Nazis directing the Jewish “actors” and will underscore the dehumanizing effect of racism and intolerance.
TICKET PRICE: STUDENTS: Php300.00
REGULAR: Php600.00
(20% discount on the regular price for senior citizens, government employees, military employees and PWDs. (Please present valid ID)
REGULAR PERFORMANCES: September 27 to October 13, 2013
10:00 AM October 4 & 11
3:00 PM September 28, 29, October 4, 6, 11, 12 & 13
8:00 PM September 27 & October 5
CAST:
JONATHAN TADIOAN - Shylock (Father)
REGINA DE VERA - Portia
TUXQS RUTAQUIO - Antonio
MARCO VIAÑA - Antonio / Salerio / 175
LOU VELOSO - Gobo / Tubal / Duke
NICOLO RICARDO MAGNO - Basannio / Nazi 1
DORAY DAYAO - Nerissa
RALPH MATEO - Lorenzo / Morocco / Nazi 2
BUNNY CADAG - Lancelot / Utusan / Aragon / Solanio / 175
JV IBESATE - Salerio / 175 / Lorenzo / Nazi 2
ALDO VENCILAO - Solanio / Utusan / Aragon / 175 / Lancelot
ANTONETTE GO - Jessica / Gipsy / Jew / Utusan / Understudy Portia
LHORVIE NUEVO - Jessica / Jew / Utusan / Understudy Nerissa
RACQUEL PAREÑO - Shylock (Mother)
TRIXIE ESTEBAN - Shylock (Daughter)
TRACY QUILA - Gratiano / Nazi Leader
TJ RAMOS - Pianist
PRODUCTION STAFF:
Jennifer Bautista Production Manager
Alpha Ruiz Deputy Production Manager
Jo Ann Requiestas Assistant Production Manager
Jerome Aytona Stage Manager
Eric SIndol Assistant Stage Manager
June Francis Domingo Property Custodian
Daniel Gregorio Costume Master
Manila Avid Photographer Photographer
Tuxqs Rutaquio Poster Design
For inquiries on ticket reservations, group sales, sponsorships, special performances, please contact:
TANGHALANG PILIPINO FOUNDATION INC.
Cultural Center of the Philippines
2/F Production Design Bldg. CCP Complex
Roxas Blvd. Pasay City
P +632 8321125 local 1620-1621
F. +632 8323661
Mobile: 0917-750-0107 (Cherry Bong), 0908-894-1384 (Lei), 0935-378-4781 (Enzo)
**Tickets also available at CCP Box Office: 832-3704 and all TicketWorld Outlets: 891-9999
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Director's Notes
"One would have to be blind, deaf, and dumb not to recognize that Shakespeare's grand, equivocal comedy The Merchant of Venice is nevertheless a profoundly anti-Semitic work." So begins Harold Bloom's little essay on Shakespeare's work. What struck me was when he mentioned further that,
"Shylock would be very bad news indeed if he were not funny; since he doesn't provoke us to laughter, we play him for pathos, as he has been played since the early nineteenth century, except in Germany and Austria under the Nazis…"
The cruel irony implied could not escape me: A regime notorious for engineering the systematic, unspeakable murder of millions of people, Jews in particular, produced this play closest to the way Shakespeare probably intended it to be: as a comedy, with Shylock as a comic villain, someone to be laughed at, ridiculed, reviled, and meted out with a justifiable, satisfactory punishment: confiscation of his property and conversion to Christianity. The Nazis idea of conversion, of course, meant sending the Jews straight to heaven. The comic implication could only therefore be thought by the Nazis themselves. Hence the layout in which this version of Tanghalang Pilipino is rendered.
Shakespeare no doubt, not foreseeing the coming of the Holocaust hundreds of years after, would have turned in his grave, and yet the anti-Semitism that he must have imbibed in his time sticks to him, albeit blind denials by many fans to this day. For as the Irish Mr. Deasy in James Joyce's Ulysses told Stephen Dedalus, "Ireland, they say, has the honour of being the only country which never persecuted the Jews. Do you know that? No. And do you know why? … She never let them in." So did Elizabethan England.
This was the impetus that led me to pitch this project to Tanghalang Pilipino. The fascination of how a seemingly harmless play, like Merchant of Venice, could never be played the "same way" again, because of the horrible events in human history. This play will be part of a history of persecution, intolerance and prejudice paradoxically pitted against the "universal and noble" values of mercy and justice. As we rehearsed the play, I begin to ask -- that passionate advocacy for mercy vs. justice by Portia could never have applied to everyone. In the logic of the perpetrators of utter persecution of marginalized people in history -- mercy and justice can never reach the persecuted. It is simply unthinkable. These values are not inalienable to the "alien" for these values are inalienable only to those they consider human. History has practically negated the lofty vision of a merciful world.
In developing the concept of the Der Kaufmann project, the homosexual, we realize is also inevitably subjected to the spotlight. The categories of labeling prisoners/outcasts by the Nazis are precise, clear and cruelly clinical. And in this staging play, they too are un-spared -- for to fulfill the ideal world without wimps, stained bloodlines and perverts, that is, the ideal world of Belmont with Portia as its fated and royal purveyor, all these dregs will have to be eliminated.
The comedy that Shakespeare wrote can only then be achieved, it seems, if the villains of History are accorded their happy ending. History therefore has perverted and turned this play, written in an age of "innocence" (comparably), upside down. And we realize, as Walter Kaufmann has pointed out, Tragedy died when the horrors we witness on stage becomes pale in comparison to what we experience in real life. Comedy then becomes our only rescue and relief. But the comic can only be dark. We do not share the laughter of the innocent.
Some may not take this interpretation to their liking. For many would hanker for sticking to the original. Yet with Merchant of Venice, the "original" could, I believe, spark far more controversy than the adaptation. Moreover, if all we wanted was to be 'faithful" to the original, there's no point in adapting it. Not even for a shallow reason as to make it comprehensible for a modern audience.
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