As John Bell again prepares to tread the boards and play some of Shakespeare’s greatest characters, he does so with an ear for the Bard’s “tremendous empathy” that, he says, counters any attempts to cancel him.
Bell, 80, and the nation’s eminent Shakespearean, is appearing in a solo turn, One Man in His Time, in which he will perform speeches from Richard II, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Antony and Cleopatra, The Merchant of Venice and other plays.
The short run opening at the Sydney Opera House on Thursday and then at the Canberra Theatre Centre is a chance to see Bell create with his voice such characters as Hamlet, Falstaff and Shylock.
Bell said the Elizabethan playwright was deeply interested in the people who were outsiders or marginalised, such as the Jewish money-lender Shylock and dark-skinned Othello, the Moor of Venice.
“It’s contentious, but I think it shouldn’t be,” he said. “Othello is a tragic hero who is a victim of racial hatred and vindictiveness. Shylock is given the floor and makes a very eloquent plea about persecuted minorities. The Merchant of Venice is not an anti-Semitic play; it’s about anti-Semitism, and a kind of society that breathes anti-Semitism.”
Read the article by Matthew Westwood in The Australian.