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| Diane Flacks (centre) with members of the company in Nathan the Wise. (Photo: David Hou) |
Nathan the Wise
by the German Enlightenment playwright Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (it was
written in 1779) is so seldom performed that I’d never heard of it until
Canada’s
Stratford Festival elected to produce it this summer. It’s a
fable, set in ancient Jerusalem, with more narrative complications than a
Shakespearean romance. The title character (played by Diane Flacks) is a
wealthy Jew who has used his fortune to maintain friendly relations with
the powerful Muslim and Catholic forces in the city, represented
respectively by the young Sultan, Saladin (Danny Ghantous), and the old
Patriarch (Harry Nelken). When Nathan returns from a business trip, Daya
(Sarah Orenstein), the Christian woman who manages his household and takes
care of his daughter Rachel (Oksana Sirju), tells him that Rachel was
rescued from a fire by an itinerant Knight Templar (Jakob Ehman) with whom
she has fallen in love. The Knight Templar, a soldier in the service of the
Catholic Church, has also won the affection of the Sultan, who slaughtered
his fellows – prisoners captured in the holy war between the Christians and
the Muslims – but spared his life because he looks so much like Saladin’s
long-lost brother. The story is a series of revelations of the true
identities of the characters, not just the Knight Templar but also Rachel,
and of Nathan’s own past. And of course, it’s a plea for tolerance in which
two of the three voices of racial hatred – Saladin and the Knight Templar –
prove to be capable of crossing the boundaries that separate Christians,
Muslims and Jews. The Patriarch, who at one point advocates burning Nathan
at the stake, is the third, and he doesn’t alter his point of view.
