"The Merchant of Venice 1936". Royal Shakespeare Theatre
Tracy-Ann Oberman’s grandmother and great-grandmother stood on the front line in the Battle of Cable Street in 1936, shouting ‘You shall not pass!’ at the ranks of British blackshirts marching under Oswald Mosley’s fascist banners. Oberman herself has been the subject of vicious antisemitic abuse, and in 2022 movingly addressed a House of Lords event celebrating women campaigners against racism. Oberman’s family history shows that present fears are no less than horrible imaginings of the past. Mosley’s thugs may have gone down with the Nazis, but antisemitism is alive, well and living in a university, a political headquarters or a football ground near you, today, right now. So this production of The Merchant of Venice is a passion project. Transplanting the story to the time and place of her own family’s suffering, and casting herself as the mater familias , a female Shylock, casts an aura of personal significance over the play. Oberman isn’t just acting Shylock; she’s consciously por