The Merchant of Venice that, as a convert, Shylock would have been cast out of the Jewish community in Venice, no longer allowed to live in the ghetto. Another interpretation of Shylock and a vision of how "must he be acted" appears at the conclusion of the autobiography of Alexander Granach, a noted Jewish stage and film actor in Weimar Germany (and later in Hollywood and on Broadway). The play has inspired many adaptions and several works of fiction. Edmond Haraucourt, French playwright and poet, was commissioned in the 1880s by the actor and theatrical director Paul Porel to make a French-verse adaptation of
Jessica (The Merchant of Venice) actions amount to abandoning her father and betraying him to his enemies. By the last half of the 20th century this "sentimentally sympathetic reading" was starting to be rejected, but without a corresponding reassessment of Jessica. She was still viewed as inhabiting primarily negative values, in contrast with the positive values associated with Portia, Bassanio, and Antonio. Writing in 1977, Raymond B. Waddington thinks that: Slights contradicts this view, pointing out that it conflicts with "a natural audience response" and argues that "we must question judgments that deny the most obvious emotional force of Shakespearean plots and characters." Shakespeare's plays