Shakespeare in Spanish......

Since my years at college, I’ve always been a Shakespeare’s fan. Last saturday I was greatly excited to go to the theater in Granada for the first time and see a performance of The Merchant of Venice in..Spanish. Although I do speak Spanish, let me tell you, I had to make big efforts to grasp every word and not being lost in translation.
I was impatiently waiting for Shylock's most famous cue, which we had to learn by heart at school:

Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions; fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, heal'd by the same means, warm'd and cool'd by the same winter and summer as a Christian is?
If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?


The plot is the following :
The story is set in Venice. A young gentleman, Bassanio asks his friend Antonio to lend him some money in order to seduce a beautiful heiress called Portia. Antonio who loves Bassanio cannot refuse. He’s a wealthy man and has ships and merchandise busy at sea but needs to borrow the money from Jewish moneylender Shylock. The latter despises Antonio who insulted him previously but nevertheless accepts the deal on one condition : if Antonio cannot return the money on time, then Shylock will prevail 1 pound of flesh on Antonio's body......
(if you don’t know the play…then I let you discover it...)

portrait of Shylock and his daughter Jessica by Maurycy Gottlieb

Although this play is classified as a light comedy, overtime I see it more as a drama and its antisemitic aspect bothers me. In fact the audience didn’t laugh too much. In Shakespeare’s time, English law forbid Jews from living in England so it is assumed that Shakespeare used a commonly spread negative image of Jews in his play. In fact, you might wonder, did Shakespeare mean to laugh equally at Christians ?

pic : the red curtain at Teatro Isabel La Catolica in Granada.