Rare Earth Mettle, Royal Court from 10th Nov

It's notable too that in a character trailer, where the character is seen making an advert for his company, the name on the clapperboard (seen at the start of each abortive take) is 'Debbie Aarons'.  Was this another fictional name to open up his universe; if so was it just for the trailer, or another character in the play itself?  If a fictional choice, it extends the references to Jewish identity they attached to the central character.  It's still on the Royal Court website.

I'm not getting why a villainous character can't be Jewish? In real life you get some villainous, or just not very nice, people from every racial or religious background. The Royal Court is a notoriously left-wing theatre & many left-wing people seem to think the entire nation of Israel isn't very nice because of their treatment of Palestine (I completely disagree with that opinion. As far as I'm concerned God gave the land to the Israelites millenia ago, so it's theirs.)

I guess I don't see enough serious plays, because the only dramatic character that I can think of who fits that stereotype is Shylock. More in books, admittedly. I suppose it would depend on what the Royal Court think are the majority opinions of their core audience. I wonder if it would be considered acceptable to have a character who is villainous in some way unconnected to money - say a murderer in a crime passionel - have a Jewish name.

You've completely lost me.
I'm baffled as to how you can miss the point by so much. Honestly just re read what everyone is saying here, it's not particularly difficult to follow.

I can explain.

It’s nothing to do with having a villainous character who is Jewish. It’s having a Jewish character whose specific “villainous qualities” are well-known antisemitic tropes that have been used in racist propaganda for centuries.

If someone created a villain who was a serial killer who went around butchering people with a chainsaw, and that character happened to be Jewish, that wouldn’t necessarily be antisemitic since there’s no history of Jewish people being associated with chainsaws.

If you don’t mind a quick history lesson: during the Middle Ages Jewish people were banned from many jobs and guilds and were forced to become money lenders, which was considered dirty/bad and not something decent Christian people were allowed to do. The entire reason that the association between Jews and finance exists in the first place is because Christian Western societies quite literally forced Jews to do so.

The authorities and the Church (remember this is when the Church had huge power) then demonised and violently oppressed Jewish people for doing the very thing they themselves had forced them to do.

The historical association of Jews and finance was then weaponised to incite Jew hate, and this association has been a mainstay of antisemitic propaganda ever since. Over time this association grew and grew, and developed into conspiracy theories, about Jews secretly controlling the world (as well as racist tropes about Jews being greedy, Jews being Demonic, Jews not caring about anything but money).

This antisemetic propaganda has been directly responsible for centuries of murder and oppression, including forced exiles and genocides.

For example, one of the main reasons WWII/the Holocaust happened was because the Treaty of Versailles (the Treaty that formally ended WWI) enforced such incredibly harsh penalties on Germany - Germany was ordered to pay Reparations to a cost that would be £284 BILLION in today’s money - that the country went broke and plunged the German people into severe poverty and starvation.

Now the number one rule of government is always find someone else to blame and scapegoat for your failures, and always find someone weaker to blame. Of course the German government were not going to hold their hands up and say “hey we screwed up, we went to war and lost and this is our punishment.” Instead the German government launched a deliberate plan to convince the German people that their country’s financial situation was the fault of the Jews, who were secretly hoarding money.

It’s the exact same thing the Tory government and Tory press do when they try to pretend the country’s financial problems are due to disabled people claiming benefits (disability benefit fraud is something like 1% and the amount the government pay out in disability benefits is negligible) to detract attention from the fact the UK would have a lot more money if the government made corporations pay tax, and cracked down on corruption! But it’s easier to lie to people that the reason they had to wait ten hours in an understaffed A&E is because Jim from next door who has MS used his benefits money to buy a TV.

The Holocaust simply would not have happened if the German government hadn’t used Jews as a scapegoat, and the reason they were able to do so is because of literally centuries of antisemitic propaganda painting Jews as money hoarders. (There’s plenty of information out there if you want to research, start by looking at post-WWI era propaganda posters and magazines.)

This continues to this day. That’s without even going into the Elders of Zion, blood libel, Q-Anon.

That’s the reason this specific set of characteristics is antisemitic. Because it’s referencing a specific stereotype that was invented in order to scapegoat Jews, demonise Jews, incite racial hatred, and justify forced expulsion and genocide.

They've just had David Baddiel on talking about it on Radio 4's Today programme.

Curious - what has the name been changed to? (Sorrry if I missed it).

Succession spoiler alert: a strand in yesterday's episode was partly built around this theme. A character is mentioned called Josh Aaronson, and the Waystar people start dropping anti-semitic tropes and phrases into the conversation. The programme writers assume their audience are sensitive enough to pick up on this, and if they don't, towards the end, it's called out.

Contemporary issues and cultures are thrown up and twisted around without a pulpit being wheeled out. Multiple levels, lots of ideas and perspectives. Taking one to illustrate: Elon Musk (pretty literally) vs. the NHS as a clash of ideologies, ethics, solutions/outcomes, and also challenging their evangelical dimensions, played out on an Ecuadorian salt flat littered with colonial detritus.

I’m not sure this can be trimmed much (or that they'd want to!). Atm it’s 7.30 to 10.38 (with a 15-minute break).

Much to dwell on. In a good way, it’s a bit epic.

(The antisemitism trope situation is appalling, as the fact that it was not spotted a mile away and the poor manner it was dealt with).

Just saw this earlier and it was a hoot.  Epic is a good way to put it.
Very funny (the choreography! the translations!), long but doesn't drag.  The post above mentions HBO - if this was turned into a TV series I would probably watch it, and there should be plenty of material for a couple of seasons at least.  

It's paywalled, but there was an article on it in the Sunday Times and the article's writer posted on Twitter that the anti-semitic issue with the name was flagged up to the director Hamish Pirie but he didn't convey this to the writer. The writer of the article, Kate Maltby, also comments on Twitter that the Royal Court didn't release the information until after her article had gone to press, 'as they knew'. It's bad, especially coming from a venue that is so meticulously careful when it comes to other groups and issues (there was even talk of them confiscating plastic water bottles from audience members a couple of years ago!).

In all the years it is the only theatre where phones have gone off again and again with no notice taken by staff. It also had terrible toilets. The food and bar, poor. Yes, the seats are comfy, but the sight lines are poor, you are under a canopy at the back of the stalls. All in all, I can do without and now I know about this production, I do not need to bother to go there.