'Hard hearts' resounding now: anatomising race, resistance, and community in The Merchant in Venice (2016) and Julius Caesar (2017). Issue 1 (July 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Henderson, Diana E
• Other Names: Kapitaniak Pierre guest-editor.; Sakowska Aleksandra guest-editor.
• Is Part Of: Cahiers élisabéthains. Volume 99:Issue 1(2019)
• Page Start: 173
• Page End: 192
• Publication Date: 2019-07
• Subjects: re-citation -- race -- non-traditional casting -- political theatre -- poetic echoes -- daggers; re-citation -- race -- distribution non traditionnelle -- théâtre politique -- échos poétiques -- poignards; English literature -- Early modern, 1500-1700 -- History and criticism -- Periodicals; English literature -- Early modern, 1500-1700 -- History and criticism -- Book reviews -- Periodicals; 820.9003
• DOI: 10.1177/0184767819851076
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0184-7678

Abstract

Placing two innovative, high-profile stagings of Shakespeare in dialogue, this essay emphasises the power of re-citations, both as aural echoes and as tableaux, across dramatic genres. Building on Martin Luther King's self-quotation within his anti-Vietnam address, it reveals how the Compagnia de' Colombari's site-specific The Merchant of Venice, performed in the originary Jewish Ghetto, and the New York Public Theater's Julius Caesar, which created a national furore, each employed non-traditional casting and Shakespeare's Act 4 emphasis on threatened yet suspended male-on-male violence to create complex political theatre, addressing historical ethnic and racial inequalities within 'the fierce urgency of now'.