Professor David Peimer
Marlowe: The Jew of Malta

Professor David Peimer - Marlowe: The Jew of Malta

- Okay, so welcome to everyone, everywhere and hope that everyone is well and can perhaps begin enjoying something of life. We’re going to look at this remarkable, reckless, energetic, passionate, incredible individual, playwright, poet, translator called Christopher Marlowe. Contemporary of Shakespeare’s, probably we reckon, you know, probably 10, 15 years his senior. Certainly he was already established as a poet and playwright in London, you know, the time of Shakespeare’s arrival. And as you can see, those are his dates. And he died when he was 29 in a pub fight. Rumour is, it was, oh, who was going to pay the bill or that they were drunk, or a mixture of both. Or that he was working as a spy, undercover spy for Queen Elizabeth under Charles Walsingham, who was the legendary Q in the James Bond movies. The legendary spy master, as you all know, I’m sure of during Queen Elizabeth’s reign. So it’s a man of great education, knowledge of the world. I think mostly the extraordinary passion for life and recklessness and hunger for action and life. And not only to live life to the full. I mean, as far as we know, he really did work as a spy. Travelled but he lived this incredibly passionate life. He really lived carpe diem, you know, seized the moment, seized the date. As far as we can understand, he lived it.

Not only wrote about living it. And you know, at the same time was writing poetry, was writing plays, getting huge audiences, et cetera. Much larger than life theatrical figures compared to the more perhaps reticent, perhaps thoughtful, considered Shakespeare. And all we can glean is from what we get from Shakespeare’s players and a few of his accounts and bills. But did they know each other? We can’t say for sure, but we can speculate they probably met. Shakespeare was definitely influenced, a Marlowe particular, “The Jew of Malta” Marlowe’s play influencing Shakespeare’s “Merchant of Venice.” It’s fascinatingly, both using the Jewish character as their main protagonist. Of course they didn’t have to. Jews, as I’m sure everybody knows, they’d been exiled and basically kicked out of England for 300 years and were not allowed to be living in England at the time, although of course there were some who were conversos and some others big names. So I want to try and get to grips with this guy’s writing and with his, a little bit about his life, cause that really doesn’t form the crazy wild passion of the plays and why they still perhaps resonate, I think for us today, in terms of some of the themes and the style of writing, which is quite different to Shakespeare’s in terms of a vision of life.

I think Marlowe’s vision is much more brutal and passionate and wild and a dark vision of humanity. But it’s tempered with this extraordinary passion and theatricality, which borders on the ludicrous as I’m going to point out and the melodramatic certainly of us today and probably would’ve be seen as a savage dark comedy for his times. And I think the audiences would’ve loved and laughed enormously. They were hugely popular as players, huge hits. So he certainly had his finger on the pulse of how to create a smash hit. Just briefly linked to what Trudy was lecturing on Thursday about Joseph Nasi and very interesting, this huge larger than life figure who, you know, was wealthy Jewish and became so many transformations and reinventing his identity in a way. And I think that Marlowe would definitely have known about Joseph Nasi and possibly influenced by that character for his character of “The Jew of Malta.” And also it’s possibly the Dr. Lopes who was the Portuguese Jew who was Queen Elizabeth’s physician. But then was called up on trumped up charges of treason and executed in a pretty vicious, barbaric way during Elizabeth’s reign.

So there were two very prominent Jews around this time, but officially they were not allowed to be legally in England because, you know, Jews had been kicked out for a couple of centuries before, so weren’t allowed to be in England at all. Did Shakespeare or Marlowe ever meet a Jew? Possibly very small chance. Marlowe perhaps more likely cause Marlowe mixed more with the educated elite. He was educated university, et cetera, and did work for Walsingham as far as we know. Shakespeare mix, we don’t know on the other hand, you know, their companies who, you know, had the seal of royalty, you know, with the kings and the Queen, they were the companies of the Royal aristocracy leaders. So we have no clue, I don’t know if it helps to speculate or not. They might have met some conversos who, you know, the Jews who had converted, maybe there were a few hundred living in London at the time, or few a dozen. We have no idea really. There’s no accurate historical fact. But they would’ve been influenced in their imagination as poets and playwrights by Joseph Nasi figure, the Trudy gave her really fascinating lecture on, or possibly Lopes Queen Elizabeth’s physician. There’s the Duke of Naxos. So a mixture of fact and fiction, a mixture of playing with a stereotype image of the Jew, which we know only too well, looking at Shakespeare’s Shylock and the archetype shake, the Jew, the hook noses and the avaricious greedy, the different other who is sly and cunning, not to be treated as an equal, but as a dog and a cat as we get in Merchant of Venice, and to be treated as immoral, lacking Christian compassion, Christian mercy and justice.

Eye for an eye versus et cetera. So all of these things set up around this time of Marlowe writing. Like Shakespeare, he doesn’t have to choose a Jewish character, but he does. Does he only choose a Jewish character in order to make a lot of money, smash it so that he can portray these avaricious, greedy Christ killing Jews as a stereotype to make money and feeding into the audience’s prejudice or, like Shakespeare is he trying to also say something else. And what I want to argue today is that there’s something very similar about Barabbas, the main character in “The Jew of Malta.” He is the Jew of Malta and the Shylock in the “Merchant of Venice.” And it’s a little bit contentious what I’m going to suggest and argue is a link between the two about the portrayal of empathy and revenge. And the need for empathy and the need for revenge in human nature for both Barabbas in “The Jew of Malta” and Shylock in “The Merchant of Venice.” Where they come from being so mistreated personally and centuries of, if you like, inherited persecution as a legacy being Jew. And I want to try and propose that the insight of Marlowe and Shakespeare about how revenge is dealt with when a person has been so badly treated in their life.

And how, again, how theatre can use first the need for empathy from the audience. “Understand me as a human being,” Shylock is saying, and Barabas is saying, “If you prick us, do we not bleed? "If you poison us, do we not die? "If you tickle us, do we not laugh? "We are the same as you. "We are human, we are Jewish, you’re Christian, "this, that we’re just human.” And those speeches of empathy, both for Barabbas and for Shylock force the audience to recognise the basic humanity outside of the stereotype label of Jew and Christian. But once Shylock and Barabbas have the empathy of the audience, and this for me is the brilliance of Marlowe and Shakespeare and their insight into human nature. Once they have the empathy of the audience, we’re human. So we’re Jew, you’re Christian, okay, we’re all capable of compassion, mercy, hate, revenge, et cetera. But then they embark on revenge. And this is the contentious part that I want to argue. In Marlowe goes for it full on passionately. Shakespeare does as well, it’s a little bit tempered, but the need for revenge because I will force you the audience to empathise with me as a human being on the same. Call it Jew, call it Christian, Black, White, et cetera, in this case Jew. But I will force you to empathise with my humanity and then I will force you to empathise with my need for revenge.

And that is for me, the brilliance of Shakespeare and Marlowe’s insight in both “The Jew of Malta” and “Merchant of Venice.” I will force, through empathising with me to see how badly I’ve been treated by the Christian ruling elite, the Christian majority. They can do anything with the law, anything with my money, they can kick me out, deprive me of citizenship. They can take my property, they can do what they like because as Shylock, I am a Jew, Barabas I am a Jew. That’s the only reason. There’s no other reason. And because of that mistreatment and centuries of it, inherited, I’m going to show you what it means to get revenge and what I learned from the Christian world about revenge, and I will implement it, but I will better the execution as Shylock says. So I want to show this, in the two plays. And in this case of course, Marlowe’s what I referred to Shylock as well. And it’s a fascinating understanding of human nature cause we’re beyond an eye for an eye or whatever. It’s how human nature works to solicit empathy and then for a revenge because of how badly, terribly, cruelly the individual’s been treated, the family’s been treated, and they’re inherited grandparents, great, et cetera, et cetera going back, persecuted, disinherited, deprived of citizenship, treated like a filthy foreigner, alien, outsider, citizen. What can they do except look for some revenge? Try to forgive, but what happens? What happens if they stay the victim? What happens if they become the fighter and try for revenge? And these are the, I think the profound and disturbing yet profound and I think honest questions that Shakespeare and Marlowe are trying to explore. “The Jew of Malta.” Why Malta? Malta as we all know well it was, and probably maybe still is, a very important military naval base in the Mediterranean for over many, many centuries. Going way back to the Phoenicians, the Greeks, the Romans, et cetera.

Then the Turks, the Muslims, et cetera, et cetera. Malta in the English imagination of the time would’ve been this kind of naval base, this kind of centre in the Mediterranean control that like Gibraltar, you control a lot of the med as the saying used to go. So there’s history of war and conquest, clash of religions of Muslim, Christianity, a little bit of Judaism, all thrown in, in the island of Malta. Clash of languages, of races, of religions, all happening through ancient history going in through Shakespeare and Marlowe’s time. Fascinating, now I went for an amazing conference at the University of Malta on theatre, which was extraordinary. And we presented some work, we did some theatre work, we did some work as well as presenting some university stuff. And it was extraordinary, the range of theatre people and university scholars who came from all over the world because it was Malta. And of all the places I’ve seen, it still remains transfixed in my imagination. Cause you cannot… The history is in every step you take in, that’s in that small little island. It’s so imbued and of course the second world war as well. Okay, and what interests me is how these Jewish characters and Malta would’ve forced their way into Marlowe’s poetic imagination in a way. Just to help in a sense, combined with what Trudy was saying about Joseph Nasi. 1492, all the Jews were forced to leave Malta.

They could take with them a few belongings, couple of suitcases, that’s it. Money gone, mostly. Belongings gone. Family history, gone. They were basically kicked out in 1492, maybe a few dozen Maltese Jews converted to Christianity at the time. Most who remained in Malta or were allowed to remain, either had to convert or had to be slaves or a combination of the two. And it’s only in 1798, 1492, they kicked out. 1798, they were freed from slavery. It’s only 200 and something years ago, nothing. It’s a hell of a long time, you know, and they would’ve been slaves at the time of Marlowe writing and Shakespeare. But of course, Joseph Nasi and many others would’ve been embedded in the stereotype imagination and non-stop imagination of Marlowe. And it was an Napoleon who abolished slavery of the Jews. Napoleon arrived there for four days in June, 1798. He set up a public finance administration. He abolished all futile rights. He kicked out feudalism and the rule of aristocracy in four days and privileges, abolition of slavery, granted freedom to all Jews and all Turks who lived in Malta. He enforced a public education system, primary and secondary education. In four days, Napoleon, did a lot, which lasted for a couple of centuries afterwards, mostly. So an extraordinary figure, Napoleon, almost like an Alexander the great figure in certain ways for me, not only in conquering, but bringing education, language, new ideas, more progressive way of thinking to parts of the world at least. And abolishing fideism and under a sense of a different way of, let’s say, of dealing with Jewish people. Okay, Marlowe here.

So I give that just as a bit of a way of background as to this extraordinary tiny island of Malta, which looms so huge in I think, western imagination. This is a picture of Marlowe who lives this life of extraordinary drama and high life in his own life and drama. With the plays that he wrote, this innocent picture belies a lot of the stuff he wrote. It’s full of cruelty and violence and blood, “The Jew of Malta” and his other plays. The role of religion in war, intrigue in the daily society, not only the rulers, but the ordinary people of society. And from my perspective, I think he was at minimum, cynical about religion, if it not had a political dislike or hatred because he saw what it was doing and how it would rip society apart and how it could be used by politicians to rip and destroy from within and without society and justify wars and civil wars. There’s a wonderful phrase in the play. The one character says, “Ah, here come two religious caterpillars.” You know, Marlowe constantly throws out these phrases, which are just wild imagination. Here come two religious caterpillars. There’s no reason, they’re not actually, they’re two friars. As I said, he was involved in the bar room fight, which led to his early death at 29. He was charged with blaspheming against the church.

There are lots of strong, more than hints that he was homosexual and attacked for that. That he was betrayed by another playwright. That he was doing espionage for Walsingham, that he was linking with the privy Council of Elizabeth. There were at all these connections and was living this life and writing plays. He was charged with religious heresy in 1593, but released on bail 10 days before he was stabbed to death. He’s a second son of nine children. His father was a shoemaker. At 16, he wins a scholarship to go to University of Cambridge. He gets his BA in Latin. In 1587, he’s meant to be awarded his MA degree at Cambridge. But the university hesitates to give it to him cause there’s a rumour that he is going to go to France and prepare to be ordained as a Roman Catholic priest. Now, it would’ve been totally against Elizabeth’s reign and royal edicts. Nobody could be Roman Catholic and to be Protestant and to be criminalised and criminalised and worse could happen. So there’s a rumour who starts it, who doesn’t, but it’s in the records. And Cambridge holds and refused to award him the MA degree until the evidence is proved that he wasn’t intending to go. And there’s the theory with fair amount of evidence that he was operating as a secret agent for the Privy Council and a member of Sir Francis Walsingham’s, the origin, if you like, of MI5/MI6. KGB, CIA, you know, FBI, et cetera, et cetera. Or rather, the first real secret service. Coordinated, organised secret service in England. Elizabeth’s reign under Walsingham. He goes on to write “Tamburlaine the Great” Dr. Faustus. And I think Faust is a central theme in all his plays.

The Faustian bargain, you know, what will I do? What price will I pay to get what I want? Will I give up all my money? Will I give up my life? Will I give up this, will I give up that? My family, my children, in order to get fame, power, glory, money? What’s the Faustian bargain I’ll make in life? His players are full of it. Every characters are making Faustian bargain all the time. “Edward II,” remarkably vicious, radical, revolutionary play. And then “The Massacre at Venice,” “The Massacre at Paris,” in 1593, which is probably his most revolutionary play of all. It’s a vicious attack on how religion is used to be so cruel and destroy society, as I said, from within and without. And the play, “The Jew of Malta” is full of these vitriolic attacks on how religion is used in political intrigue and political, serious vicious physical cruelty. So, and the passion not only of a young man, but the passion of this highly edu-, educated young man, writing this. He’s also the guy who came up with a phrase, you know, the face that launched a thousand ships. That’s hell of Troy when Agamemnon and Achilles and all the other Greeks and the Gulf and home is epic to conquer Troy, you know, Helen, the face that launched a thousand ships. His plays were hugely successful, made a lot of bucks. Something about catering perhaps for the Elizabethan taste, for revenge and cruelty and dispassion.

You can imagine people, most of them standing in the pit, you know, getting a bit of food and this and that and watching the play and shouting out and interacting. You get this really lively sense of the participatory interactive quality of the plays in Marlowe’s more than Shakespeare’s. Because constantly talking to the audience, constantly the plots are so intricate and so involved, it’s hard to keep pace, but he’s got to keep the audience, you know, got to keep them interested, what’s happening next in the story. “Massacre in Paris” was also regarded as his most dangerous play because agitators in London seized on it, the theme. And they used it to advocate the murder of religious refugees from the Spanish Netherlands and warns Elizabeth in the last scene, you know, do something about these religious people who are coming out from the Netherlands, otherwise they’re going to come in influence here in England. So, and it was used by agitators at the time, this interaction between theatre and politics. So close in Marlowe, does he lack the humanity of Shakespeare? I don’t know. Is he more melodramatic? Yes. Is he more on the savage comedy, dark comedy? Absolutely. More melodramatic in today’s context? Yes. But he understands how religion can be used. And I emphasise that word, how religion can be used to provoke enmity and hate and dislike and from religion it’s a small step to the other. The different other, of course, here are the Jew of Malta, the Jew, also the Turks and many others, you know, would’ve been seen in certain ways.

Okay, this is here, it’s a copy from one of the first, this is one of the posters from the early version of the play, 1633, “The Tragedy of the Rich Jew of Malta.” Of course the title has to be “The Tragedy of the Rich Jew,” cause the biggest perception at the time, obviously there’s the blood libel, the Christ killer, et cetera. But the rich, the avaricious, two things, I think the money, the cunning and the stereotype of the cunning, dirty, rich Jew, together with the sort of global controlling Jew, which of course, you know, the Jo’s of Nazarene and the other were a few and far between. The majority were probably pretty poor and living, you know, a bit here and there. But they were the convenient other, not only obviously during the Nazi era, but we see the more than the seeds, we see the reality of the stereotype perception of the Jew in Elizabeth in England through these players. And to me, the courage of these guys to take on these characters in their plays cause they’re not showing them simply as a stereotype to be laughed, mocked and scorned like feel for their humanity. And then understand why their desire for revenge is necessary. And that to me, as I said at the beginning of this talk, is for me, the brilliance of Marlowe and Shakespeare. Then this here is a picture of, this is Edward Elaine. Edward Elaine, he was the lead actor for Marlowe. You know, each company had their lead actors. Well this is not a poor guy, he’s living well, comfortable, rich, et cetera. He’s the lead actor in the “Dr. Faustus” in “Tamburlaine the Great” and “the Jew of Malta” and possibly other plays, we can’t be sure. So they all had their lead actors who were famous and well known in their time. This here is a picture of The earl of, want to get it right, the Earl of Derby, who was one of Marlowe’s main patrons, actually Derby and is actually part of this whole Liverpool, Lancaster area and other parts of England. Massive landowner.

One of the richest aristocrats in England at that time, running for centuries into fairly contemporary times. This family. So to have him as a patron, obviously touches the absolute upper echelons of royal society. So these are the worlds that Marlowe and then later Shakespeare are mixing it, but certainly Marlowe even more. And these people love seeing the plays because they know what the reality is going on. But it’s not said specifically is about England, right? This is “The Jew of Malta.” It’s about Malta and it’s about Christians and Jews, and Turks, et cetera, you know, and how bad and evil the Turks and the Muslims and the Christians are. And the Jews are, let’s say Malta are in England. So you could sort of skate the thin ice, skate the line and get away with it. What’s interesting to me is that there’s a phrase in the play about washed with water to be dirt. And that’s the Jew and the other are seen as dirt. But the task of Barabas in the play is to fight back against being defined as the victim, the different other. Never stop fighting back and do it with relish. Because when society betrays an individual simply because of the accident of their birth, religion, what choice do they have? They can accept being the victim and the downtrodden, whispering humbleness that Charla talks about. Chop down my head in whispering humbleness and say, you know, you’d wrong me, et cetera, and it’s okay, you know, do anything you want to me, I’ll just be the compliant little victim, implicatory, or am I going to fight you?

Am I going to get my revenge on you for treating me like this? When society betrays and betrayal for me as the key theme because of these people’s birth. And to me, this is the insight of Marlowe and Shakespeare, I will first elicit your empathy in the play. And I will stand and deliver soliloquys and make you feel for me, make you see I’m a human and I suffer the same as you do. I suffer age, I suffer ailments, if you prick us, do we not bleed? I suffer hurt, I suffer emotional hurt, physical hurt, same as you. I’m vulnerable all the rest. But if you wrong me, shall I not take revenge? In Shylock’s phrase. What do you do when a person is wronged? Can we not understand the need for revenge when groups and peoples and individuals are so betrayed by the society? By the principles of the society itself? And that’s the key, the society that holds itself up to be this Christian of compassion and forgiveness and mercy and justice betrays its own laws, its own rules. What recourse is left, but revenge. And that’s to paraphrase the Shylock and the Marlowe “The Jew of Malta” are so close together here. The sufferers to be human to the characters answer, their suffering. Both Marlowe and Shakespeare give us the Jewish characters whose words invite our empathy and then say, “We don’t even pity the other Jews "because they’re victims, "they placatry.”

We will not in Marlowe’s words or for Barabbas in the play, “We will not seek the simplicity of these base slaves. "I will not seek the simplicity of these base slaves.” He’s talking about the other Jews in Malta. They’re base slaves, I’m not going to be a slave. I’ll fight, I’ll die for it, but I’ll fight for it. I refuse to be a base slave. That’s Barabas’ creed, if you like, motto. And Shylock, I would argue as well what Shakespeare picks up from Marlowe, “I will not be washed so that I’m nothing but dirt. "The dirt off the body, even not even the dirty body, "but the dirt off the body.” It’s an extraordinary image of Marlowes. Once Barabbas has been so betrayed and so mistreated, he embarks on this journey of the most melodramatic images of revenge if you like. So what do these characters want? Barabas and Shylock, they want power. I don’t believe they only want empathy. They want empathy to be seen for their humanity, but through that, they want power so they can exercise revenge for their terrible mistreatment and their terrible persecution. To paraphrase these characters, I will make you feel as I do. ‘Cause I can do that on the stage. I can make an audience feel for me, even if I’m a deformed slave like Caliban. Even if I’m a monster or I’m a ridiculed character, you know, or if I’m a hunchback, Richard, I can make you feel for me and empathise with me on stage. Feel what I suffer, feel my poverty, feel my emotional poverty, feel that I’m suffering, I’m just a hunchback, what you’ve made me feel. And then understand why I want the power for revenge, because of what you’ve done to me, not Christian mercy, compassion.

And that’s where Marlowe and Shakespeare turn the tables completely on the Christian principle and the way the Christians justify all their actions in the two plays. And this is a remarkable insight into human nature and human condition by Marlowe and Shakespeare from my perspective. It’s a very personal interpretation. I’m not trying to say that there are people who would disagree with me vehemently, you know, and go much more the humanistic approach, the empathy approach only. But we cannot deny the number of times the word revenge is used in both plays. And what is the truth of human nature? Maybe it’s both. I think Shylock and Barabas are saying, “If you make us a foreigner stranger, "dispossess us of our livelihood, "of our money, or our jobs, of our homes, "of our family, of our citizenship, "kick us out of your country after taking everything. "What do you expect? "You kick us out of our rightful life. "What do you expect? "Kick us out of England. "Kick us out of Malta, make us slaves.” What do you expect when a people are so badly treated and have such a legacy of this, over many, many centuries? The dog Jew, as Shylock is constantly called in “Merchant of Venice.” Shylock, if a Jew wrong a Christian, what is this humility? Or revenge? If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be? Or revenge? The villain that you teach me, I will execute and it shall go hard, but I will better the instruction. You teach me that the truth is not compassion, mercy, justice, love other Christian principles. You teach me the truth is revenge. I have no choice. I have a choice but to revenge myself against you and I will better the instruction to quote Shylock. And this is a similar phrase, in Barabas, in “The Jew of Malta.”

And it echoes all the way through Caliban in “The Tempest,” whose Caliban is the so-called primal deformed savage in the tempest on the island of the tempest Prospero is a coloniser if you like, but the conqueror from Milan and ruler who’s there on the island, he’s been portrayed by his own brother in Italy. But he’s the slave to Prospero. And he says to Prospero, okay fine, you teach me your language and my profit on it is I know how to curse you, fine. You teach me your language, you teach me your principles, your morals, your ethics. But what’s my profit on it? I know how to curse you. And that Caliban in the last play of Shakespeare “The Tempest,” revenge for freedom. Caliban doesn’t want to go back to Milan, Caliban wants freedom on his island. What is the Jew of Malta? What does Shylock want? Freedom to be, to live their lives as they are in their religion. Okay, to go onto here, I want to play a little bit from, this is from “The Jew of Malta” from a production done by the RSC. And this is the director talking that’s the story of the play.

• The “Jew of Malta” is the story of Barabas, who is a rich Jewish merchant in Malta. At the start of the play, the governor of Malta has a message from the Turkish empire that he owes them tribute, money so they don’t invade the island. So what he decides to do is he’s going to take all of the money from the Jewish population of the island and not tax any Christians. After this, Barabas swears revenge from being stripped of everything he has. And with the help of his daughter and a slave that he buys called Ithamore, he begins to plot against the governor. He does this by using his daughter Abigail, to lure the governor’s son Don Lodowick into fancying her, basically. And he sets up a kind of rivalry between Lodowick and Mathias, who also is in love with Abigail until they fight a dual and they kill each other and they both die. After this, his daughter turns against him and she becomes a nun. And he then swears revenge on her as well for betraying him. And with Ithamore’s help, he poisons all the nuns in the nunnery with her dying breath, Abigail confesses that she was all her sins and crimes with her father to a fryer who then decides he’s going to use this information to blackmail old Barabas. Barabas pretends that he also wants to convert to Christianity. He then manages with Ithamore’s help to murder both of them. Ithamore has seen a courtesan, called Bellamira and has fallen head over heels for her. Whilst he’s drunk, Ithamore reveals that all of the crimes that him and Barabas have committed and Pilia-Borsa and Bellamira realise they need to tell the governor this. And the governor is delighted, cause he’s quite fancies polishing off Barabas and orders Barabas to be put in prison along with all of them until they have a trial.

However, suddenly mysteriously they all seem to be dead. They chuck Barabas’s body over the walls, but it turns out that he wasn’t actually poisoned or dead. At this point, the governor is having to prepare to defend Malta from the Turks who having heard they’re not going to be paid their tribute money, decide they’re going to launch an invasion. Barabbas offers his services to the Sultan’s son, the head of the Ottoman Army, and with Barabbas help the Sultan manages to take Malta and capture the governor and capture the town. The Sultan’s son, Calymath makes Barabas the governor of the island. Barabas then imprisons Ferneze, but gets a bit worried that actually everyone in Malta hates him. So he decide he’s going to double cross Calymath, the Sultan’s son as well. He makes a deal with Ferneze that if Ferneze gives him lots of money that he will arrange to have Calymath killed and all of his men blown up in a farmhouse. The plan is that he’s going to boil Calymath in a cauldron. However, Ferneze double crosses him and instead they seized Barabas, and then put him in a cauldron and kill him. With Barabbas dead but also all of the Turkish Army slain and blown up, and Calymath the Sultan’s son is left as a hostage to the Christian–

• Okay, so if you can follow, that’s better than me. The extraordinary plot of intrigue and assassinations, murders, poisonings. But in essence, it starts out because, the Turks are threatening to invade Malta and the Muslims and the Turks and the Christian governor decides he’s going to take Barabas’ money, all his wealth and all the money of the Jews and bribe the Turks to not invade Malta. Barabas then goes and does a deal with the Turks to keep some of his money to be on the side of the Turks and the Muslims against the Christians. He’s been betrayed by the Christian rulers. That’s how it all starts. And he tries to get Abigail, his daughter, to marry a Christian and to marry… And then the Christian. And then he realises Abigail’s betrayed in his mind. She goes to convent, Barabbas has all the nuns poisoned and Abigail, his daughter killed. And it goes on and on and on until finally betrayal after betrayal, intrigue after intrigues until Barabbas finally, you know, is thrown into a hot cauldron and dies. And at the end, you know, in their way they say, “Well.” And the government comes back and the Christian rule is reestablished over Muslim Turkish rule. And they say thanks to mercy of heaven and to justice, et cetera, as if all of that has been the real reason.

And of course they’ve just been at Machiavelli manoeuvred. His out manoeuvred, out manipulated the Turkish Muslims and the Christian have. So in essence, what’s interesting is that around this time of Marlowe writing is that there were, and Shakespeare, there was another play, hugely popular, that’s called “The money.” And it was advertised as the greedy and bloody mind of the Jew usurers. And as part of the advert was the Jew with the long nose dirty cap, the filthy user, the Jew, the greedy Jew. These all phrases going around in popular pamphlets, you know, of the times. And other plays, this is just one of them going around to you, I guess make a lot of money by using this stereotype of the Jew. Now what’s interesting… I’m going to play another little extract here, which is from the the RSC, the trailer for that production.

CLIP BEGINS

• Be thou void of these affections. Compassion, love, vain hope. Heartless fear. Be moved at nothing. See thou pity nun, but to they self, smile when Christians moan.

• Brave master, I worship you for this,

• “The Jew of Malta” is going to be a rip roaring revenge tale full of blood, gore, violence, faith, hope with kinky friars, dangerous Turks, dastardly plotters, and corrupt politicians.

• I really enjoyed it.

• Yeah, yeah, I really enjoyed it too. There’s a lot of humour, there’s also drama, there’s also sadness, there’s also happiness. There’s a great mix.

• There’s more in it humour than I thought. I thought Jasper was brilliant.

• I walk abroad and I and kill sick people groaning under walls.

• “The Jew of Malta” is so relevant at the moment because we are living in a time of religious strife and warfare. And this is a play that deals with the hypocrisy that lots of people use religion to hide their various misdeeds behind.

• It’s really fast paced, there’s always something going on. Electric, doom laid in and dynamic. Oh, and I would certainly say mystic. Come and see just a dynamic dramatic play. It’s sort of like warm fall with really.

CLIP ENDS

• So, this here of “Jew of Malta” is only about five, six years ago that this production was done by the RSC. A very popular and really well staged production. but it’s going much more for the obvious theme, I guess, of religious strife, religious conflict and so on. What I’m trying to do is dig a little deeper into looking at Marlowe and I think Shakespeare are really trying to understand the position of the Jewish character in their times. And why they create them with such empathy and such human empathy and such desire for revenge. Where’s that coming from? So at the beginning of the play, Machiavelli gives the prologue. And I know that Phil gave us the wonderful talk on Machiavelli the other day. And Machiavelli begins the play as the character at the beginning. So Marlowe is setting up, this is a world of Machiavelli and intrigue politics, you know, murder and mayhem. Machiavelli says at the beginning of the play, “Do not let Barabas,” he’s the Jews. Barabas is the Jew who’s being so mistreated. Do not let Barabas be entertained the worst because he favours me. In other words, don’t see him as bad just because he favours me Machiavelli, his wealth was not got without my means. He only got rich with my Machiavelli means, but the same as all the others. Barabas is cunning, and ruthless, deceiver, greedy.

Then interestingly in the Machiavelli prologue speech, Marlowe has Machiavelli say, “A count religion, but a childish toy "might first make kings religion is but a childish toy.” And this is Marlowe speaking through Machiavelli, I think trying to show the audience of the time the utter hypocrisy of how the Christian predominant religion Christianity is used to justify mercy, compassion, forgiveness, love, but is even more deceitful, revengeful, blood thirsty, cunning than the so-called Jew image and stereotype that the Christian ruling elite have set up. And I think this is what is meant by Marlowe putting in the mouth of Machiavelli right at the beginning of the prologue of the play. This resourceful theatrical figure full of energy over the top of the energy of Barabas, similar to Shylock. Even Abigail is driven to say, “I see there’s no pity in Jews, "no piety in Turks or Christians. "I perceive no love on earth.” She’s been betrayed by everyone including her father, the Christians, Jews, her lover, the Christian, the ruling elite and so on. To show how ludicrous the play is and how melodramatic and Marlowe pushing it to an extreme for a savage comic purpose, I think is that he has Barabas tell his slave Ithamore that he learned medicine, so he could learn how to poison people, that he became an engineer so he could make money by advising both the French and German armies in the war against each other. And that he has filled the jails with bankrupts in merely but a year. So it’s, you know, that he has so much ability, maybe it’s influenced by the Joseph of Nasi character or the larger of life, but on a stage it feels so ridiculous.

It’s so over the top. This character’s achieved so much and done so much. And I think it’s pushed to that extreme, why? Partly for the humour, but also for the hope of satire of then got to go to that extreme to get back with the Christian elite. Okay, there is, one has to be honest and say in Barabas, there is a relishing of the fighting spirit because Barabas also sees the Jews as base slave, as spineless, cause they won’t fight back like he wants to. So he takes it all on himself. And Shylock does the same, his constant reference to biblical persecution and biblical stories constantly come in, in Shylock and Barabas. But in the end, who’s the real Machiavelli? Who’s the real manipulator of them all? It’s the Christian ruling elite, which reestablishes through a moral and cruel and vicious rules of its own, which have nothing to do with the rules of Venice or the rules of Malta, but are made up on the spot almost to justify their maintaining their positions of power. So in the end, the real Machiavelli, the most ruthless and cunning of all is the governor, the Christian governor of Malta.

And the same way as the Venetian aristocratic Christian rulers. So it’s, I think what I’m trying to show of these understandings of these two characters and these two playwrights who are so close to each other. As a way of a bit of humour, when Tom Stoppard wrote “Shakespeare in Love,” the wonderful film, which I’m sure many have seen. In “Shakespeare in Love” and Stoppard, has this wonderful scene where he has this imagined meeting in a pub between Marlowe, the established playwright and a young Will Shakespeare trying to make it. You’ll see the humour that Stoppard tries to bring in into the rivalry and relationship between the two.

CLIP BEGINS

• This to show for it, I insist, the beaker for Mr. Marlowe.

• I hear you have a new play for the curtain?

• Not new, my Dr. Faustus.

• Alright. I love your early work. Is this the face that launched a thousand ships and burnt the topless towers of Ilium?

• I have a new one nearly finished and better, “The Massacre at Paris.”

• Good title.

• Yours?

• “Romeo Nettle the Pirate’s Daughter.” Yes, I know, I know.

• What is the story?

• Well, there’s this pirate. In truth, I have not written a word.

• Romeo, Romeo is Italian, always in and out of love.

• Yes, that’s good. And clearly meets Ethel.

• Do you think?

• The daughter of his enemy.

• The daughter of his enemy.

• His best friend, is killed in a dual by Ethel’s brother or something? His name is Mercutio.

• Mercutio. Good name.

• [Man] Will, they’re waiting for you.

• Yes, I’m coming. Good luck with yours–

CLIP ENDS

• Okay. It’s a fun scene in the wonderful movie “Shakespeare in Love” Stop on script. Imagining this meeting, the rivalry of the competition, but also the sharing, but possibly that happened between Marlowe and Shakespeare. Certainly the reverence that Shakespeare, I think, I would suggest had for Marlowe being the senior dramatist of the time. This is here, the picture of the, this is the Barabas character in that Royal Shakespeare Company production. The one that I showed the clip of the trailer. We’ve got to see how even these characters are portrayed today. The image, you know, of the Jew with the revenge and with the empathy all of these qualities. And it’s difficult and it’s complex and it’s highly controversial and complicated how to portray these, especially in our times today. But we cannot shirk from it, I don’t believe. Got to take on this stereotype of how Jews are being portrayed and maybe others. And what does one do? How does one deal with, can take these plays, interpret them in so many ways. In the play, the word gold is mentioned 38 times together with money, 36 times. Villain and villainy, 33 times. And that would’ve meant revenge. Poison 18, slave 16, like dog is mentioned so many times in Shylock, calling him a Jew. The word policy 13 times.

And policy would’ve been Machiavellian, ruthless, cunning ambition and strategies. No question that Barabas veers between the victim and the hero and the immoral intelligent, brutal character because he’s so brutalised himself in the way that Shylock. As to go on a spree of cold-blooded killings, mostly Christians, but also his daughter and all the nuns. What’s the code for his survival? You know, as I showed in that one clip, where his speaking to the slave. First be thou void of these affections. Be thou void of these affections. Compassion, love, hope, heartless fear, be moved at nothing. See thou pity none. But I think when you watch the play or read it, you see that Barabas is driven to this perception. He’s not born with it, he’s driven to it in the same way as Shylock is. It’s avic comic humour. It’s where, for me, the best way to capture it in a sense. I imagine that Shylock and Barabas would’ve been staged with the red hat, the long nose possibly, and all the other, the physical stereotype attributes of the stereotype Jew at the time and that’s important because in theatre, like in film, it’s the physical embodiment of the stereotype that matters or the physical embodiment of the character also how it’s portrayed. Another play, “The Search for Money” written by a William Rowley of the time.

There are quite a lot of these plays with Jew as the main character describes a usurer is wearing a Vistage like the artificial Jew of Malta’s nose. And that the Jew in the play of “The search for money” never puts a clean shirt on because he is a Jew and because he is circumcised. So because he is a Jew, because he is circumcised, he never puts a clean shirt on, that’s in his play, “The Search For Money” by this William Rowley. So for me, Marlowe is so stridently anti-religious superstition, the way religion is used, and he’s using Machiavelli intentionally at the beginning to show this is what human beings and human nature does with some maybe, you know, good ideas from religion, account religion, but a childish toy and hold is no sin, but ignorance, that’s the Machiavellian phrase at the beginning. For he that liveth in authority and neither gets him friends nor fills his bags, lives like the ass that Aesop speaker of Aesop’s fair rules. So he that lives in authority is actually nothing more than a ludicrous ass, a donkey. Shakespeare dressed in a little bit of authority. There’s another phrase, these guys are echoing each other all the time. Shylock talks about himself as being of the creed, of Barabas. Barabas, obviously the biblical reference, also the Marlowe reference as well. So, and the policy that they talk about, the governor talks about, policy that’s our chief profession. It’s not simplicity as they suggest policy is to be Machiavellian cunning, political intrigue.

Marlowe himself is being accused of heresy, of being an informer, of maybe becoming a Roman Catholic priest, betraying the Protestants or the Anglican of the time, the English, the religions there, the attitude towards the Jews and money and Christianity. All of these coming to head in such popular plays. “The Merchant of Venice” and “The Jew of Malta,” extraordinarily powerful. The revenge tragedy of course was such a popular genre also for Marlowe and for Shakespeare. And of the time, there’s something in the Elizabethan Zeitgeist that loved the revenge tragedy in the ancient Greek theatre. And I would argue today as well, you know, if we can see it’s about what happens when people are so mistreated? What happens when there’s such hypocrisy set up? And what happens when playwrights choose to ridicule the rulers who claim to be moral and principled, but actually are politically savage and brutish more than the people they destroy. No one is safe in these worlds is another interesting point. Even in “The Merchant of Venice,” certainly not in “The Jew of Malta,” no one’s rarely safe. The Christians, if they betray Harold there, everybody’s always living on the edge. And I think that’s Marlowe’s life, but it’s even more in “The Jew of Malta,” That even the Christians are living on the edge. They’re not quite sure they can be in, they can be out, they can be top of the ladder, they can snakes and ladders all the time. It’s this remarkable picture of human hierarchy, of human society and what humans possibly do to each other. Snakes and ladders of intrigue and plotting and competition, even if they’re Christians, would do to each other no matter what. And the violence that comes with it. So for me, it would be very melodramatic, as you can see in some of the examples from the RSC production.

And maybe it’s fast, it’s comedy, it’s serious, you know, those audience members talked about the humour. But you know, in the way that Twitter and Facebook and social media, in the way that our lives, small things are so heightened and experience are such vitriol and rage and anger. There’s so much bubbling in a way. And you feel this in Marlowe’s play, even though it’s totally over the top and melodramatic and it’s almost like a fuss. You know, can you take it seriously? But if one looks at takes, you know, a couple of days of our own lives and what’s going on with social media, personal life, stories coming and going, what’s really bubbling underneath that’s leading to a darkening of prejudice globally. What is actually happening? Perhaps there is something of this in Marlowe’s vision as well. Is what I sense and why the RSC choose to do this production at this time is another connection between Shylock and Barabas. When Barabas discovers that his daughter Abigail, in his mind betrayed him. Oh, my girl, my gold, my fortune, my Felicity, Abigail. Shylock, my daughter, my ducketts, my daughter, my money. So, you know, they’re echoing each other. There’s so many other echoes between the two in the two plays. Harold Bloom, the great Shakespeare critic called “The Jew of Malta,” a great holiday from reality.

I’ll leave it to you what you think, but I don’t agree. I think it’s about how revenge works through empathy. And it’s a complicated, fascinating combination in human nature and how the stage can be used to understand why people desire revenge or why these characters do and what it can suggest to us in human nature. This here in Abigail’s phrase from the play she talks about as she was chained to the folies of the world, she was naive, she was innocent, but now experienced. I purchased with grief, I purchased experience with grief, through suffering, I learnt what the world is really like. I purchased experience with grief. It’s an amazing phrase for a man to give to the daughter, through the suffering through the grief, I understand what life is about. From the daughter’s perspective. And there’s similar echoes with Jessica, with the daughter of Shylock. There’s every references to Delilah, the story of Delilah, Stephenson in the play and many other biblical references, which, you know, we don’t need to go into here. The second last I want to mention point is the idea of the Faustian bargain. And I think more in a way in Marlowe than in Shakespeare. The characters Christian, Jewish, Turks, Muslims are all the time making Faustian bargains. Either they’re victims, Christian as well, or Muslim, or they’re making Faustian bargains every moment in the play trying to get, one snakes and ladders, one upmanship, one down. And there’s a ruthless, reckless passion that goes along with all this successive machinations of the plot, if you like.

And I think that is rooted. Gert is fast and the story of fast, I think is rooted in Marlowe’s vision more than Shakespeare’s. Shakespeare’s more tempered with other qualities of perhaps another humanity and really trying to understand more compassion, mercy and justice, how they really work. Marlowe died when he was 29. If he’d lived, would he have written more like Shakespeare? Evolved in that way as a human being in his own growth into maturity? We’d have no idea. But we can’t ignore this youthful, young playwright and the influence on Shakespeare and the influence on the English and the Elizabethan imagination, which is tapping into something so powerful, resonating for the imagination globally of today. And the remarkable thing in the end, did they ever meet a Jew? Highly unlikely. Did they ever have a conversation? Maybe bits and pieces here and there, but still or able through their own poetic imagination, something pushes through to unleash these characters with these understandings about human nature. Okay, I want to thank everybody. This has been quite in depth and I’m filled with a passion of hollow myself. You can’t help it when I read these plays again and again, 500 years almost after they were written quite extraordinary that they can spark such a crazy passion. So thank you very much everybody.

• [Judy] We want to have a thank you David? There’s a couple of questions on the Q&A if you have a moment.

• Thank you. Thanks Judy.

Q&A and Comments:

Q: First question. Why do you think of the tradition that the much more highly educated and well-traveled Marlowe was the author of, what do you think of?

A: I don’t think Marlowe wrote Shakespeare’s plays, I think Shakespeare wrote his, and Marlowe wrote his, long, big debate amongst many, many scholars. But I think there’s a clear difference. Can feel it in the writing use of language and their vision is very different even from a young age when Shakespeare would’ve started his early plays and Marlowe dying at 29.

Q: Mitzi, our Jews, have they ever been in the history of persecution, generally bent on revenge?

A: Well this is up to, this is again, these are… That’s a really interesting question, Mitzi. These are Christian born playwrights trying to understand the role of revenge in their own society in Elizabethan world and how it plays out. Maybe it was being projected into the Jew, you know, suffer so much, undergo so much persecution. What else is there but revenge? Maybe, I don’t know. It’s a really interesting question. And would be a great area to research and look at, you know, other Jews they embarked on revenge in theatre anyway, or novels or literature.

Marilyn, Marlowe was a very forward thinking, recognising religion can be used to store enmity. Absolutely Marilyn. I mean I think he was one of the first, and certainly before Shakespeare and many others to understand, you know, that religion in Machiavelli’s phrase is but a childish toy. It’s the way it’s used. It’s used as a childish toy to create a discord and hate and dislike of any other in our time as much as then.

Teddy, which was probably first, “The Jew of Malta” was way before it was at least probably eight or 10 years before Shakespeare’s the staging of, before Shakespeare’s “Merchant of Venice.” It’s Marlowe who definitely is the one who influences Shakespeare.

Phil, most of Shakespeare’s were written after, exactly after Marlowe’s death. Thank you.

Q: Terry. Did Shakespeare have a rich patron?

A: Yes. Shakespeare had the patronage of the highest, of the royalty of the times, the Kingsman.

Rosemary, please spell Joseph. I think it’s Nasi N-A-S-I if I remember. And the lecture on him is with Trudy’s, which was given on Thursday. It’s a wonderful lecture. Fantastic.

Heather, interesting choice of the name Barabas. Absolutely from the New Testament, from the Bible. He was a rebel who was freed by Pontius Pilate. Yep. At Easter, over the Passover Seder. So Barabbas is the name of the character in obviously in “The Jew of Malta.” And that’s who Marlowe chooses, the slave or was the rebel who’s freed by Pontius Pilate. Marlowe trying to invert and subvert every aspect of religion. I think he saw it as the curse of society and the way humans used it in society, to attack, destroy and steal from each other. Clarissa, thank you. The address, the long modern Shakespeare would be one of the same. As I said, I don’t believe they’re the same. I believe they’re very different. The name Barabas. Yep. The other victim. Yep.

Eugenie. How about the impact of Portia’s Quality of Mercy speech. Great. Exactly. Is it not negated by its context? I agree. Eugenie. Portia’s, quality of mercy speech, you know, the quality of mercy is dropeth like the gentle reign from heaven is absolutely set up that this is the highlight, this is the ultimate of Christian religion. Mercy, compassion, forgiveness. Not only love our neighbour and all that, but mercy, compassion. But what the Venetian Christian rulers do in “The Merchant of Venice” far outweighs what Shylock tries to do. And in the same way, what the Christian governor and the ruling elite of the Christians try to do against Barabas and the Jews, far outweighs what Barabas tries to do in revenge. Basically they steal all the money, everything Barabas has and the other Jews to try and bribe the Turks. So the Turkish Muslims would not attack Malta. If we imagine that today, everything, suddenly you get a decree. Every Jew in America, Canada, England, South Africa, Israel, well not Israel, but anywhere, money all into one pot. You’ve got a month, get out of the country, give all your money and we’re going to stage off an attack by whoever. This is the level of the imagination of these writers. Or, you know, with Schneider it’s much more personalised into the Venetian Christian aristocrat in the play of Antonio. So it’s more personalised. Yeah. It’s the governor and it’s a Muslim army attacking.

Phil. “Merchant of Venice” written, yeah, three years after Marlowe died apparently. And staged after. Definitely.

Q: Did Marlowe include Machiavelli in his playtext?

A: Yes Teddy, Marlowe includes Machiavelli in the prologue. Machiavelli gives the prologue in the play of “The Jew of Malta.” And that setting up, I think Marlowe’s vision of the world is Machiavellian. Because that’s what he will have lived and experienced and seen. And 16 he’s at Cambridge. He gets an MA within a couple of years, but he’s treated, you know, is he a liar? Is he a blasphemer, is he homosexual? He’s attacked on so many personal levels and he’s had up for heresy and many other things at such a young age, but also getting his MA in Latin. So he would’ve understood and read Machiavelli, probably in the original.

Yolandi that be Jew characters change over the years, but anti-Semitism is sad, he persisted of the centuries to this day. Now it’s Anti-Zionism. Yeah. Yolandi, I think it was Rabbi Six, who said that it was anti-religion and now it’s anti the nation. Or maybe a combination of the two. I think there’s still the anti, the Jew, name, the word Jew. And of course anti-Zionism. But it stimulates such vitriol, you know, in many parts, perhaps more the western world. Barbara, in many recent productions of Wagner’s the master singers, they have made a concerted effort to clean up the stereotypical Jew, Beckmesser.

Q: Is that a good or bad thing, in my opinion?

A: That’s a great question, Barbara. I don’t think so. I think that, you know, to anaesthetise it and sort of clean it up. I don’t think it shows, it shows a kind of fantasy I know it shows the reality of what happened. And I think only when one faces the truth of the buried secrets, the skeletons in one’s own cupboard or the cupboard of one society that perhaps a regeneration of rebirth can, again, I don’t think it, you know, if I think of apartheid, South Africa is a good… I don’t think it’s a good idea to, you know, water wash or whitewash rather the sort of bad, horrible things, show the truth. And so that perhaps we can learn, perhaps we cannot repeat. I think if there is an anaesthetising, I think that it works against, these are just works of art. They’re not, you know, they’re not real life. It works against the aim, which is the challenge to question, to provoke, to ask us to try and understand something about human nature.

Q: David, was Marlowe anti-Semitic?

A: I don’t think he was, I really don’t. I think he was anti the way religion is used. I don’t know if he’s anti-religious, but I think he’s anti the way religious ideas are used. Yeah, it could have been to make a lot of money, use the Jew as the victim. It’s a perfect way of criticising Christianity. But I think because they, both Marlowe and Shakespeare throw this empathy, once you have human empathy for a character on stage, you can understand the character much more and why they do what they do. So once you understand how they’ve been so badly persecuted or mistreated on a stage, you get the audience’s empathy, more than feeling. You get their empathy and from there they can hopefully understand why you behave as you do. They may not agree with you, but you can understand. And I think that’s for me the brilliance of insight of Marlowe and Shakespeare in how to use theatre and how human nature works and how theatre works.

Okay, thank you Roma. Okay, thanks. Okay. Okay. Thank you very much. Karen.

Uta, have you ever met a Jew? Yes, the New Testament Bible. Okay, I met there obviously would’ve, you know, but I’m, yeah, obviously the real line. Caroline, thank you.

Yeah, “The Rich Jew of Malta.” It’s a fantastic play for these reasons. And when a director and the actor crack it, for me, this play of empathy and revenge, it can be empathy and other things, you know, but theatre works through solicit empathy first and then, you know, show that, understand the behaviour.

Paul, your next talk, I would enjoy analysis of the literature. Lions. Great, thank you. Were there Jews in England? No. When these plays were written, no. They’d been kicked out centuries before and there were no Jews officially living there. There might have been a few Conversos converted and you know, a few dozen, a few hundred, might have been living totally illegally.

Monty. Thanks Monty, seeing you again. Thank you.

Q: Was Marlowe’s death a setup?

A: That’s a great question. I think everybody would love to know. I don’t know, it might have been a setup. The claim is it was a drunken brawl over who was going to pay the bill in the pub. Was it a setup because he was worth forcing him and the secret service of the times? Was it a set up by one of the other religious groups? Possibly. Who knows?

James, I don’t agree about Portia’s mercy speech in the context of the play. Portia’s a moral centre of the play and I believe the crucial mercy speech was meant to be taken at face value. Shylock the villain, who does not wish to show mercy to Antonio must be punished with his rejection of mercy regardless of the behaviour of the other Christian characters towards him. Lovely idea James, and great point. And I’d love to debate that with you cause I think that Portia is using it to outwit Shylock, but it may not be. And the magic of these plays is that one can have a thousand interpretations. Great idea, James.

Q: Thank you. Eugenie. The racism of Scotch Fitzgerald, the Great Gatsby was voted down and blurred over in the recent movie productions. Do you think this works?

A: No, I don’t. As I said before, I think that maybe I’m too much from South African background, but I think the truth must come out. And when we show the truth, why are we so scared? Why not? Why not show the truth? What are we scared of actually? In art, in paintings, literature, whether it’s, you know, whatever society, the dictatorship society, the horrific treatment of women in Saudi Arabia or wherever. I mean, there’s so many things, why not? Why are we… Why be scared? I think that it can show what people can do to each other and hopefully not repeat it. There’s something in that. Marilyn, thanks very much. Okay.

• [Judy] Wonderful.

• That’s good.

• [Judy] Thank you David,

• Thank you very much Judy and to everybody, really appreciate and hope you can have a great Saturday night and Sunday.

• [Judy] Thank you David, and we’ll see everybody soon. Take care. Bye-bye.

• Take care. Ciao.