In this companion piece for CatholicVote, I sat down with “Shakespeare Uncovered” producer Richard Denton, and explored the Bard’s possible Catholicity and undeniable humanity:
“The odd thing is,” [Denton] said, “in a way, the plays make more sense when you realize they are written by a man who’s not entirely in control of his own gift. He sits down to write a play, for instance, ‘The Merchant of Venice,’ which we haven’t done [on ‘Shakespeare Uncovered’].
“He knows that writing an anti-Semitic play is going to be really good for business, a big scandal. Christopher Marlowe’s play, ‘The Jew of Malta,’ is doing stonking business in the next theater. So, he says, “I’m going to do that.’
“And he sets out to write it and fails catastrophically to write an anti-Semitic play, because as soon as he gets into the character, he goes, ‘Yeah, but, I mean, they called him a dog, so, could a dog lend money?’ And suddenly he writes a play that’s completely different, not the one he wanted to do.”
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