It is precisely Shakespeare's own depiction of Shylock as a Jew who fits the stereotype but is still, with it all, a human being, that makes the play interesting and vital. 19th century audiences did not need Bowdlerization and 21st century audiences certainly do not need a 'Merchant of Venice' edited in manner acceptable to Abe Foxman, Morris Dees and Kyle Bralovsky's mother.(obligatory South Park reference)

Ron Rosenbaum is writing about racism, but he's not racist and the article is not racist. (Or, maybe it is?)

On another note --- even though my family writes music and words and sells books, I'd be in favor of doing away with copyright altogether so derivatives like this would be legal for modern works.

Plagiarism is bad, but reinventing the wheel is unmodern.

Unless you believe that Disney and Microsoft should own the world, copyright is evil.

You know, it never occurred to me before now that there's still time to co-author a play with Shakespeare.

Michael Medved's "Golden Turkey Awards" gave the honor of "Worst Title Credit" to a 1928 version of Shakespear's "Taming of the Shrew" which included the line, "Dialogue by Sam Taylor" below the writing credit for Willie S. himself. So the idea of embellishing Shakespeare and tacking your name onto it has a long, honored history in the artistic community.

Randall,

Copywrite protection ensures that innovators will be rewarded for their innovations, thus insuring a continued flow of innovation. Societies without copyright or patent protection ossify, Imperial China is the classic example.

The problem with copyright is that it was intended to be limited in duration, and require some effort to get one (registration and renewal required). Many of the problems stem from the attempts to make them easier to obtain (merely by creating a work) and infinite in length.

I'll probably catch this.

Looking for Richard was ace.

Look for the small scene by Kevin Spacey.

Raoul,

I'm definitely with you (and I write software for a living, so copyright is something that directly affects me.) I'd be quite happy to have the copyright laws modified so that copyright lasts for 20 years, no renewals. Is there anything in today's world that we invest in with a longer time frame, outside of infrastructure? (Home mortgages for one's actual residence qualify, of course--they're just infrastructure writ small.) You surely couldn't sell Hollywood investors, or any book publisher on the planet, on a project that wouldn't break even in 2 years, much less 20!

There's a certain irony that when you're talking about serious litterary works and other intellectual endeavors, the current battle over copyright exparation dates -- the extension from 27 to 54 to 75 and now to 95 years -- is due mainly to cartoon characters, who unlike their human counterparts, don't age. That's why a 76-year-old Mickey Mouse is a more valuable current commodity, than, say a 76-year-old Dick Clark (just to pick a human entertainment celebrity who seemingly never aged, but ended up having a stroke this week).

Perhaps it is not irrelevant that The Merchant of Venice was a great favorite in the old Yiddish theatres in New York.

I am a Jew who is seriously discomfited by the Merchant of Venice. But if I were to direct the play, the only changes I would make would be in A4S1 where Shylock would kill Antonio and Portia at the climax and be killed himself, which would be the logical denoument of the play. On hearing the news Jessica flings herself from the Camponille and dies.
A4S2 and A5 would then be dispenssed with.

Robert, then you are missing the point. Shakespeare deliberately uses every single canard of Christian mythology that existed in judenrein Britain at the time, to make his broader point which is central to the play as I explained above.

Bart - copyright doesn't protect innovators, it protects marketers, by removing market forces and creating state sanctioned monopolies.

Copyright is evil.

And your example of China is nonsense. Their entire government and society is run like copyright.

When I write a book, what happens? I give someone the right to publish it. Fine. If someone steals it and/or uses my name without permission, that's fraud. No copyright is necessary to protect my name and my work.

However, if someone writes a story based on my idea. Fine. He does a better job; he deserves to make the money that I didn't.

When everyone operates under this principle, everyone wins. We all get to borrow ideas and perfect concepts. Art wins. Consumers win. And, especially, artists win, because they are free to do whatever they want.

Randall,

Chinese history provided no copyright protection, no patent protection, it didn't recognize intellectual property at all. It is the world's center of infringement of these issues.

If I create a better mousetrap, why shouldn't I get the benefit? If you can just copy my mousetrap, and take aware part of my market share, why should I invent a better mousetrap to begin with?

Bart, you're missing the point completely because you are talking about patents (which were designed specifically to get rid of trade secrets and, within a short period of time, make ideas public domain).

Artists are hurt by copyright because they cannot derive from others. Stagnation is death. This is why copyright is evil.

Follow the logic of copyright to its conclusion and you get nothing more than a fascist government, or pre-freetrade Europe.

Bart: You are correct up to a point. In A4S1, at the climax of the play, the courtroom scene, Shakespeare pulls his punch. At that moment Shylock has earned the right to a tragic hero's revenge and death, not a comic butt's surender and comeupance. But, Will knew the audience could not handle that conclusion so he wrote the comic end.

Robert,

Understood. However, I would maintain that the 'surrender and comeuppance' is more horrible than the nobility of a tragic death. In Elizabethan England, as anywhere in 16th century Christendom, when you wrote about Jews, you had to conform to certain preconceived audience notions or face consequences far more serious than a bad review.

Compare Shylock with Marlowe's Barabbas.

Bart: That was then this is now. if Iam restaging it now. I stage it as the tragedy it ought to be, not the comedy it had to be.

Robert,

Then call it Robert Schwartz's 'A Merchant of Venice' not Shakespeare's. To do otherwise is a PC bowdlerization and a fraud on the theatre-going public.

Bar: Whatever you say boss.

Although bowdlerization is probably the wrong word?