Gratiano

Ross Ericson

• Publisher: Methuen Drama
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781350113510
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Theatre Playwriting

Bassanio has been murdered and, under suspicion, Gratiano is forced to revisit his Fascist past. He was never the hero – just a minor character, the plucky comic relief – but he never thought he would play the villain... In a challenging sequel to William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, this one-man monologue written in a mixture of verse and prose explores the politics of prejudice in the 20th century. Amongst the turmoil of post-war Italy we read between the lines of Shakespeare's classic tale, examine the true nature of the characters and ask just how Mussolini managed to use democracy to turn a people against themselves. This edition was published to coincide with the 2019 tour.

Scene Five

The alley. Nothing has changed except that Gratiano is a little more drunk.

Gratiano

They do say that we are not born to hate,

That a child’s no understanding of it,

That it needs to be nurtured, which is true,

But our ability to hate is there.

It is a hole made ready, something prime,

That sits gaping, waiting and expectant,

Waiting for something to fall into it

And thus to wake in us an enmity.

Now clever men – to further their desires,

Or for to distract us from their purpose,

Or turn us away from their shortcomings –

Use words to carve a subject for that hole.

And they would fill us up with their hatred,

Poke at the embers of our prejudice,

And stoke up a fire within our hot hearts

That will turn to ash all rational thought.

It is them, they will say, boy, it is them,

Can’t you see they’re the cause of all your woes,

And we do look to where they are pointing

And we see something unfamiliar,

Something different, something new and strange,

Be it their clothes or the shade of their skin,

the language they speak, their philosophy,

Or even just the colour of their hair,

And by such means we do learn to hate them.

And they have voices too who tell them that

We are different and then when they look at us,

They learn to hate us too; so it begins.

How is it not easy to hate the Jew?

A race that boasts themselves chosen of God,

Who consider you an ignorant beast,

Unclean and dirty, a filthy gentile.

Who look down their long arrogant noses

As if you’re something to scrape from their boot,

Or look through you as if you are not there

For you’re but a speck of dirt in their eye.

And though they despise you for what you are

They, having no state, beg your charity,

Come nest in your fair city, chasing out

All those whose grand-pères had called that place home,

Turned it into some foreign counterfeit,

Filled it with their heathen cacophony,

That drowns out all familiar sounds,

Turning the air foul with their rancid food

That does drip from their thick lips like dog spit.

They do take from us and give nothing back,

Though we see their wrists hung heavy with gold,

See them stoop beneath the weight of the chains

Hung around their necks and their fat wallets,

That’re bursting, crowning ready to farrow.

So when they say that because of the Jews

Our children go without shoes, our ancients

Grow thin through lack of food, and all good men,

Who are capable, are standing idle

For lack of reasonable employment,

We find no reason not to believe them.

They are a cancer that needs be excised,

And we questioned not the diagnosis

Because why would the patient disbelieve

The attending physician in whose hands

He has placed his trust and his very life.

So we beat them black and blue, cut them up,

Stamp upon their miserable faces

Until the hot bile that boils in our throats

Has cooled enough for us to return home,

Where we do sink like satisfied lovers

Into a long, deep and unhaunted sleep.

I did often boast of my hate and bragged

Of the violence I bestowed on the Jew,

Of the beatings that we them visited

And of the blood of theirs that we did spill.

When they took from Shylock his religion

And I saw him destroyed in front of me

I basked in the pain I saw in his eyes

I thought, ‘Good, even better than him dead.’

And then when they did throw him from the court,

My spittle dripping from his ancient beard,

And he did scream and rent his gaberdine

I did laugh out loud at the sport of it.

But then I was a fool and did know not

That once the fox is gone the hounds are often shot.

For having outlived my usefulness I

Was exiled to the edges of their universe,

Far from the sun that was Bassanio

Where his light barely reached to warm my face.

Found I here sweet Jessica all alone

With only her monkey for company

And it was in that chill we found a warmth

And despite ourselves we did discover

The distance between two poles can be short,

And that Jew and Gentile can be lover.

Oh sweet Jessica there seems not one day

When my thoughts do not stray to that short night

Where we did spend our whole life together,

And with our talking we did wake the sun.

Where in its cold light we said our goodbyes,

Returned to our separate marriage beds.

But were we wrong, did we just walk away,

From our only chance of true happiness?

Or is this all just mere supposition,

Nothing more than an old man’s fantasy,

To imagine he had those chances lost.

To make more of what he thinks could have been

And curse himself the clumsy fool that let

Your gentle hand from his fat fingers slip,

When in fact you were never his to hold,

He never truly had you in his grip.

So did I watch you ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Grist to the Mill
• Introduction
• Dedication
• Contents
• Scene One
• Scene Two
• Scene Three
• Scene Four
• Scene Five
• Scene Six
• Scene Seven
• Scene Eight
• eCopyright