Rabbi Michael Beyo and Dr. Adrian McIntyre talk with opera singer, actor, producer, director, and author David Serero about depictions of Jewish characters in the arts.

Actor and baritone David Serero has received international recognition and critical acclaim from all over the world. At 39 years old, he has already performed more than 2,500 concerts and performances throughout the world, in more than 45 countries. He starred in over 100 films and TV series, recorded over 50 albums and played more than 50 lead and title roles (in several languages) from the opera, theatre, and musicals repertoire. In New York, he starred Off-Broadway as Shylock, Cyrano, Othello, Barabas, Yiddish King Lear, Don Giovanni, Figaro, Romeo, Nabucco...and in Paris as Don Quixote (Man of La Mancha) and Happy Mac (Beggar' Holiday). He entered the prestigious Who's Who in America for demonstrating outstanding achievements in the entertainment world and for the betterment of contemporary society. In 2019, he received the Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award, the Morocco Day Distinguished Achievement Award, and the Trophy of the Culture of Morocco, and was named among the 15 most influential Moroccans worldwide by Royal Air Maroc, Morocco's airline. David Serero is a member of the Recording Academy and the Television Academy and a voting member both of the Grammys and Emmys. In 2020, he received the Award for Diversity by the UNESCO in Paris.

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From PHX.fm, this is Conversation with the Rabbi, featuring open, honest dialogue and sometimes unconventional perspectives on the world we all share.

Welcome back to another Conversation with the Rabbi. I'm Adrian McIntyre. Our host for this show is Rabbi Michael Beyo, CEO of the East Valley Jewish Community Center. We're joined for today's conversation by David Serero, an opera singer, actor, producer, director, author, and all around Renaissance person. David, so glad to have you join us for this conversation.

Thank you so much, Adrian, for having me. It's really an honor. Thank you for having me.

At just a young age of 39 here, you've performed more than 2,500 concerts and performances all over the world and more than 45 countries. That's a lot of air miles as well as a lot of rehearsals. You've starred in over 100 films and TV series, recorded over 50 albums, played more than 50 lead and title roles in opera, theater, musical repertoire, so we've got a lot of stuff that we want to talk about today. We'll talk about some of the roles you've starred in in the context of the conversation with a rabbi, but you were saying just before we turned on the mic that you've just recently been nominated for a number of prestigious rewards. Can you bring us up to date with that?

Absolutely. Thank you so much, first of all, for having me. I'm really, really honored. It really means a lot. I have a huge admiration for you and also for Rabbi Beyo. I call him my Mashiach, I love him so, so much. Up-to-date ... that happened two days ago, this very prestigious awards from a very prestigious website, the most important one on Broadway called Broadway World, and I got nominated 10 times for five different categories for best performer of the decade, best opera singer of the year, and best new work for my adaptation of The Marriage of Figaro in Sephardic style, and twice for best production of a musical, once for best production of a play which includes my production of Romeo and Juliet in a Jewish style which I wrote based on Shakespeare, and production of the musical about Anne Frank that I produced written by Jean-Pierre Hadida in France.

Marvelous. Well, we wish you all the best in this endeavor.

Thank you.

Of course, Rabbi, you've known David for a while now. Why don't you catch us up to speed a little bit about your interactions.

Yes. David and I know each other, and we actually had planned to bring David down here to Phoenix to do a live performance. Unfortunately, our plans were derailed by Covid-19, so instead of that we did a wonderful online presentation of his Merchant of Venice adaptation, and it was very well-received. And I am looking forward to invite David to Phoenix at our JCC live to do one of his other shows as soon as we can.

Thank you. I can't wait. I really can't wait.

Now, running the gamut here, Shakespeare, Mozart, of course many, many others ...

They were Jewish, you know?

Right. Right. Actually, it's funny. When I lived for many, many years in the Middle East, Arab friends would tell me that Shakespeare was an Arab because truly his name was Sheikh Zubayr.

That's funny. That's very funny. Jewish mothers, they ... I don't know, back in Morocco, back in France ... they always when there is someone great, they always try to find the Jewish connection, right? They always go, "Oh. Shakespeare. His real name was Shakespirovich, and he changed ..." [laughter] Did they do that also with you guys?

Yeah.

"I think he's Jewish. I think his father is ... his uncle ... his grandfather ..."

You know what's interesting is why do we do that? Also, growing up in Italy, I remember sitting in as a kid, as a teenager, sitting in a movie theater and waiting to see all the names of the actors, and to take pride in the fact that I would recognize a Jewish-sounding last name.

I know. I know. Not that he goes sometimes from in the old days, that is. They were changing the names. Even Marilyn Monroe, her name is Norma Jean Baker.

Right.

We were putting names a little bit, and also they didn't want to be seen as a Jew boy, you know? So they wanted to be seen more internationally and get, but if your name ... I mean, David Serero, so far I'm okay, but if I was born Abraham Moshe Baroninsovich, maybe I could have had some thoughts.

Rabbi, you've got some interesting thoughts here you want to provoke us with. One of the things I like about this show and the privileged I have of being a co-host here is that Rabbi Beyo is committed to conversations that as we're already doing are unexpected, things that you would not necessarily think when you think of a conversation with the Rabbi, but here, David, with your appearance on the show, we really have an interesting entrée into a really rich discussion because some of the characters that you have played, Shylock of course in the Merchant of Venice among many others I'd be interested to hear about, are widely known for the fact that their portrayal of Jewish figures is not positive, and I think this is something the Rabbi wants to discuss a little bit. Why don't you kick us off with this, Michael. Tell a little bit about what you want to explore here.

Yeah. I would like David's opinion on the character of the Jew in these classical plays. You know? On the one hand, as Adrian, you said, they're not known to be the most pro-Semitic characters, but is that all that there is to them, and that I would love to hear from David.

Absolutely. Well, that's the great thing about characters is that you can portray them at your will. Of course, people have already a preexisting vision of a character, but it's up to you and up to the director. In that case, I'm the director, but it's really up to you to make the character the way you want. Some people kind of see Shylock as a villain. In the old days, that play was portrayed as a comedy. It was registered and listed as a comedy which is interesting because The Jew of Malta is a tragedy from which it was supposedly based from, but what is interesting here is that I wanted to put Shylock almost as a hero, as a very honest man who got betrayed and who tried to regain his honor. That was one of his challenge, and then he loses. He gets the pound of flesh, and at some point he... The yarmulke is taken from him which is what I added in the play. It's not in the original play. Of course, in a way he got his pound of flesh, but pound of flesh taken from him because that's the yarmulke, so everybody can interpret the character at their own will. I've seen a version of Othello in hip hop. I've seen Shylock could arrive and say, "Hi, guys. How are you?" He could arrive like this, or he can be like this, very, very mean, very unlikeable, I would say. Or he can be really someone who even has some humor who wants to make peace with his friends, which is the way I saw it.

Thank you, David. How come most people view Shylock negatively? I mean, clearly we can see Shylock in a positive way like you do, like you try to give him that spin, but do we know what was the Shakespeare intention, or we have no idea?

We can base ourselves on a couple of things. The first one is that at that time, there was some sort of strong antisemitic feeling, well, throughout the course of history anyway, but not just at that time, but there was this rumor about this doctor named Dr. Lopez who supposedly poisoned the queen, etc. He was a Sephardi Jew, so there was that kind of strong hate around. Then, there was a big success right before with the Jew of Malta by Christopher Marlowe, and you can see a lot of the same because I've played both. I've played Barabas, and I've played Shylock. You can see a lot of the same mechanic of the play, him talking to his Hebrews that he calls, then a difficulty with the Duke, with the state itself because let's not forget that it's not just a conflict in the show with him and another person. There is also a conflict with the state, so you have this horrid triangle. He ends up having both the state, the Duke of Venice, on one hand or the King of Malta in the Jew of Malta, and a particular person who wants him wrong. Not wants him wrong, but he takes revenge on him. People see it that way, but that's what he's saying also, Shylock, is that the villainy you teach me I will execute. It shall go hard, and I will batter the instruction, so basically he's saying, "Yeah. You complain that I'm like this, but guess what. That would happen to you. You'd do the same thing." It's like when we see someone who finds out that all his children, god forbid, have been killed by someone, and that that person wants to take revenge against that murderer. We can be like, "No. You should be this in the hands of the justice of the etc.," but how would we feel if we were in that position? God forbid we'd never have to be in that position, but that's ... It's interesting in that sense also.

David, let me ask you. What led you to decide to take these classical plays and give them a different twist?

I knew that someday I'd be talking with you. That's right. That's for me the biggest motivation. You know? You and Adrian. No. I will tell you. I've always done... Of course I've done for many years the theater very straight, exactly the way it's written. I remember I had directors who and even some critics who told me he breathed in between a phrase, or he didn't mark the comma correctly, so this is how to tell you how surgical it is in sometimes classical theater or even classical opera because I come also from that background. I've done that many times and for many years, but I always liked to add my twist so it was not necessarily Sephardic at that time, but it was taking classics and making them my own because I grew up watching also the Rat Pack, Sammy Davis Jr., Dean Martin, De Niro, Pacino, but also a lot of people of the burlesque musical stuff, standup comedian, people who have their own universe that the names don't ring a bell in the US, but that kind of inspired me, and so I grew up having all of that, and I added all of these origins into the classics. After really to bring the Sephardic twist was the relationship I have with the American Sephardi Federation, the Center for Jewish History in New York, and they have this beautiful venue, and I wanted to do the Merchant of Venice, and I spoke with them. I said, "Oh, technically Shylock is Sephardi because he comes from Italy, so how about we do it together," and the thought originally that I meant only me to do a lecture of Shylock, a lecture of the Merchant of Venice, and I invited them to the dress rehearsal which was in the same building where they are located, so they didn't travel very far, but they came, and they saw a full production with actors, with props, in the venue where they never had any shows before. That's not made for shows, and then they were like, "Wow. That's amazing, so let's do more stuff." Of course, it's been very, very successful, and it's always the result of a great equation of bringing these great classics understanding not to create an audience fatigue. Bring also... I always say you don't have to be British to like Shakespeare. You don't have to be Jewish to like gefilte fish. I always wanted to do ...

Not all Jews like gefilte fish.

I agree with you. That's absolutely true. I like it. I like it. I mean, I like it. You know? But I like better the Sephardic food, the Moroccan dafina. Michael, I have to cook sometimes for you.

Yeah. Yeah.

Adrian also. You have to try it.

I would travel very far for a good tagine.

Ah. Well, then I know the place in New York. Basically, it worked very well, and the idea was to bring also the Jewish culture even though in America it's very different, the Jewish culture in America, than it is in Europe because in Europe it's like the Jews, and then the normal people on the other end, but in America, I always felt that the Jewish culture is part of the American culture. If you look at the Marx Brothers, it's the start of a lot of great comedians who really liked the Jewish comedy, the Ashkenazi comedy, and so the idea was to bring the Jewish culture with the Sephardic twist which usually it's very Ashkenazi, especially theater. It's Yiddish theater, etc., and to bring it into these classics, but to make it for everybody so that everybody can enjoy. When I listen to Louis Armstrong or Ella Fitzgerald, I don't feel I'm listening to an African American artist. I'm feeling I'm listening to a great American artist, so even we can talk about culture, but I wanted to make it really for everybody, and the material is amazing. Othello, the Merchant of Venice, these are really timeless production, and when I did it for the first production in 2015, there was that big thing in the UK where one deputy, Jewish deputy, was called a Shylock in the middle of an assembly, so imagine at the Senate one person being called Jewish called Shylock, so that was ... People started to talk a lot about it. In 2015, it came also at a time. There were a lot of articles where it was written Shylock is my name, and then that was the beginning of an article, so it came out at a great time.

One of the things that's come up over and over in this show in many different conversations but we've never tackled really directly is the question of being Sephardi and the relationship between your traditions. David, you're from Morocco originally, and Rabbi Michael Beyo is from Italy. How do you see the importance of being Sephardi as fitting into kind of the expression of what you do now? David?

It's a very good question. Sephardi, we are known are being very, I would say, very expressive. We talk a lot with the hands. We're very ... We talk loud.

You just described Italians.

You know the joke is do you know why Italians, they can never speak at the police interrogatory? It's because they have the handcuffs. You know? "Ma! Ma!" [continues joking in Italian]. Sephardi, we are very much like that, and we always joke that when Ashkenazi is having a great time, you have to check his pulse to see if he's still alive. You know what I mean? We always have of course these very naïve jokes, but so we're very expressive, so the way of course that impacted me, the way I did Shylock. I did it with a lot of energy, and I believe also I don't think it changes really the fact that I'm Sephardi, but it's mostly how I felt is that at that time, I got robbed by my ex-best friend who robbed all the money I had, so I was kind with zero, and started lawsuits, and all this stuff, and I was really, really... Didn't have a dollar in my account. It was very difficult time while before I was like what someone would call a wealthy person. You know? Basically, I knew what it felt, the betrayal. I knew how it felt, the really like, "Give me my money. My money," and at a time when Shylock, when he's offered three times the money, I really added stuff that were not in the play that the character of Bassanio, the one who comes back with all the money, he takes. He grabs all the coins and throws them at Shylock's face when they are at the trial toward the end of the play, and then you see of course it doesn't last very long on my face. It falls right away on the floor. Then, I pause at that moment and look on the floor to show that when you have all that money, if you don't have your connection with people, if you don't have humanity, all the money you have falls. It means nothing, and then I waited, and then I put my feet on the money to show that your integrity is also more important than money because money comes and goes, but if you don't invest in people, once you have lost everything, people is what is left to you. After I went down, I grabbed one coin, and then I said, "If each part of the ducat was in six parts, and each part worth 5,000 ducat, I would not take it. I would have my bond." This is also how I felt at that time, and he teaches us about revenge. He teaches us about justice, but the expression to the audience was very thrown out there. It was a little bit like when ... amore ... ciao. Even when we sing opera, we always study the Italians because even when I warm up my voice, I always go, "Amore. Ciao," and I direct. I put my hand near my mouth, and I deploy basically my hand to direct the sound to always be projected forward, so I believe maybe an Ashkenazi would have done it more, "Had not a Jew eyes?" More introverted. "Is it not like this?" Duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh. Me, I did it more, "He hath betrayed me and hindered me half a million." You know? More thrown out there directly to the audience, and at that particular moment just to make a note, it was kind of never done before was that famous monologue, "have not a Jew eyes," which is very interesting because it's the greatest ... when we spoke about is the play antisemitic, etc., I said, "Read this monologue." It will tell you that it is actually the greatest, I would say, advocacy against antisemitism. That's because it really tells it all. It really tells it all. What I did actually at that time is usually we work with what is called a fourth wall which means we pretend that there is no audience, so of course me and my staging, the audience form is always my priority, so I always make sure that they see the face of actors, that the speech is clearly said, and that people can communicate because actors have to communicate emotions, but also they have to be very informative about the story. They have to be able to carry a story because that's the reason why that show is still around after 400 years is because of the story. If it was because of a performance, we wouldn't know about it. What I can tell you is that what I did at that time is that instead of talking to Salerio, to the ... Shylock talking to his friend, to the friend of his enemy, what I did is that I turned and addressed the audience directly and said, "He hath betrayed me," and then I went to the audience, and I looked at the audience right on the eyes, and I swear to you, there was not a single even a breath that you could hear in the air. The time really, really, really stopped because no one had never basically put people's nose into this mess that is the lack of justice, and antisemitism, and any type of discrimination, etc., so that perhaps... I'm sorry for the long answer, but that perhaps is what was so Sephardi about it. Also, I simplified a lot of the language. There were a lot of words that even for a native American speaker, a native English speaker, for American people it would be hard for them to understand, and they don't have ... People who do Shakespeare, they tend to forget that the audience doesn't have the script in front of them. They have to understand. This is why Shakespearean actors, they kind of rush. I would say, "Give a pause so that the audience can process that image," so that's exactly what I did. When I say, "Laughed at my losses, mocked at my gains, squandered my nation," always give a little pause so that the audience can feel it, but also you have to be able as an actor to use the silence, to use the breathing, etc., between the lines. Not everybody can do it these days, but that's basically the idea to also simplify the language and make it an hour-15, an hour-20, because Sephardi, we like to eat. We cannot wait three hours the play and eat after. I wanted to eat after. I was like, "Where are the bagels with salmon? With cream cheese? Where are they?"

Going back to Adrian's question, half of me is a Sephardi. Half of me is Ashkenazi, and I was always ...

Congratulations.

Yeah, thanks. I always say my family came originally from Spain and went to Turkey. I just happened to be born in Italy. Going back to Adrian's question, my experience has always been the Sephardi Jew within an Ashkenazi environment, and what I found here in America is that very few non-Jews understand that not all Jews from from Eastern Europe.

Oh, yeah. Absolutely.

I think that part of what I try to teach is that Jews come in all kinds of shapes, and colors, and backgrounds, and cultures. For example, I know that for the typical American, maybe they see me as being Caucasian, white. That's not my own self-definition. I don't see myself in that way. My life experiences has not been like that. I'm an immigrant in this country. When I speak English, I don't think anyone would think that I am from New England, and the same is for David.

Yeah.

I think that part of what I try to do is to teach and show that Judaism is a multifaceted both religion and culture, and do we have a huge spectrum of backgrounds, and opinions, and culture that we bring. For example, culturally, I may be much more similar to a Catholic Italian than to an American Jew from New England. Religiously, I have more in common with the American Jew that has been here seven generations from New England maybe, but those interconnections I think are very important because often we as a community, we are painted with one color, and we have multiplicity of colors.

One of the things that I was just talking to my own boys about because the way that history is taught, the way that US history is taught to Americans, has been so Eurocentric. Even the fact that the history books start on the East Coast when in fact the history of human settlement in the Americas starts on the West Coast.

I did not know that.

Yes. It starts with the Pilgrims arriving at Plymouth Rock when in fact the history not only of European colonization is much older than that, and in fact the first religious pilgrims to use that same word. They didn't use it themselves was in fact a community of Spanish Jews that settled in New Mexico in the 1400s. So the way in which we talk about not just my history and your history, which you could say are very separate. I'm a white, suburban American kid from the outskirts of LA, but in fact this country was settled and shaped by Spanish immigration and domination which had its ugly side as well, but that the oldest community of religious people seeking freedom to practice their religion was Spanish Jews who then settled New Mexico. You don't read about this in the history books.

I thought that the first group of Jews that came to this country were Jews from Portugal that escaped the Inquisition that had reached them in Brazil, and they were trying to go back to Holland, and this group of 13 Jews got attached by pirates, or something happened, and they ended up in New York, so I'm not familiar with the earlier-

And a permanent settlement the roots of which continue to this day although they've taken other forms as crypto Jews living in Portugal and Spain have a community that has taken its own historical trajectory. One of the things that his leads us to, as we wrap up here, I'd love to get both of your thoughts on this is the extent to which reclaiming a version of the classics or the past in this case. David, you're reimagining some characters that have been defined by others, and you're bringing a new perspective and new life to the text and to the music through doing this. Rabbi Beyo, here you are leading a community in the desert far away from any of the places that you grew up in. There's a sense in which this interplay of past and present and the ability to reimagine, rethink, recreate some of that seems very, very powerful. What are your thoughts, Rabbi Beyo, and we'll give David the last word here. What are your thoughts on this?

Well, don't they say that there's only, what, seven stories in human history, and we just take one of those stories, and we try to adopt it to our time. I think religiously also that that is the role of a good teacher and a good rabbi meaning we have to go back and dig into our past, our text, and our culture, and our traditions, but we cannot expect that they will fit one-to-one in 2020 Phoenix, so we need to find a way how to... Some call it adapt it, or fit them, or find a way how to make the puzzle work. It's always as a rabbi and as an educator, as a teacher, and also as somebody that leads this organization, I always try to dig in the past for the values and the teachings of the past, but then we have to give it a current, modern expression. If we do not give it a current and modern expression, then the past will be forgotten, and the value and the teachings of the giants before us will be lost in history books, and I think that part of what David does and part of what I do is that we don't want that to be forgotten in the history books. We wanted to bring it to life.

Wow. All right. I couldn't agree more on what you said, especially the part that concerns me. That's absolutely true. I compare Michael. I call him Michael. Originally, I call him Rabbi Beyo, but I love so much this man that he is part of my family, so when I say, "Michael," I of course mean Rabbi Beyo, but I compare Rabbi Beyo to Moses because he's in the middle of the desert, and he's bringing Jewish life and Jewish programming. Yes. We only exist by doing things, whether it's through our writings, through the performing arts, through our music because it's where we're from originally because now Jews, a lot of Jews, and not all, a lot, but some Jews own buildings, own real estate, or own car, or own stuff, but back in the days it was our tradition that the only thing because we were chased so much from one place to another was our intellectual property. This is why you had Jewish lawyers. You had Jewish doctors. You had Jewish sewer, tailor, things like that, and indeed that culture, especially in 2020, has to be adapted into the new media and the new mediums. Now, people rather watch a documentary of an hour rather than read a book of 300 pages. Let's face it. That's why Instagram, they have videos of one minute. TikTok, they have short formats of 10, 15 seconds because they know that people now suffering of attention disorder, and even thanks to the lockdown I was able to do stuff that ... I finished a book that I have written and plays that I have written that usually I never have time to finish because I have something else happening, calls, and stuff. So, we definitely need this culture to be preserved, and indeed to ... You have not to be scared to bring your culture out there because you're going to face people on every side. You're going to face your own people, your own community, because you have to sell twice more. I have to sell myself being in it, and I have to sell the play, and I have to sell an adaptation of it. It's like an artist to has to... Comes out and sings a new song. They have to sell also the song. People have to like the song. Rather sing a song that is already a success, so people even if they don't like the voice, they know they like the song. They like the groove of it. It's a bigger challenge. It's a bigger risk, but rules are meant also to be pushed, to be maybe broken. Not the law. Never break the law, but to be also ... especially in the arts. Otherwise, we'd have never had Picasso. We'd have never had Mondrian. We will have stayed with the classics, and we would have never had Jackson Pollock. We'd never have Chagall, so we need to be able to break these rules and to create what at the end is good for the audience because that's how I base myself, from the audience. You can have the best thing on paper, the best thing for the art world, whatever it is, for the critics, but at the end it's the audience, and there is a great phrase in the movie Gladiator with Russel Crowe where when he is told, "earn the crowd, win the crowd, and you will earn your freedom." On another marketing aspect, we need really, really a lot of money, but like millions to really stand out of others. Imagine you have a thousand people singing the exact same note than you do. You know? You need a lot of money to sing louder than this 1,000 so that they can hear you, or you can do what I do which is simply sing a different note so that you will stand out out of this 1,000 people. This is actually what I've been doing, and sometimes people say, "Oh. Yeah. You do a lot of great marketing." I say, "I can show you my accounting." At the end of the year, I don't even think I spend not even 0.1%, maybe 0.4% or 0.5%, not even a half of a percent of my budget goes to marketing and advertising. It's only if you can do something that is really unique, but it takes more time, more energy, and you have to be willing to do it. I have a record label, and I have a lot of artists who tell me, "Yeah. I want to do something that sounds like this, and sounds like that, and sounds like that, but I want my stuff to be unique." I say, "You will never be unique because it will always sound like the three people that you mentioned," so you have to be willing to go that way. After you write it, you don't like. It's another story, but you have to have the will, the desire, to do something unique. One day it pays out. It pays out.

Thank you, David, very, very much for joining me in for this podcast, Conversation with the Rabbi. Thank you, Adrian.

If everything is a remix, then fortune favors the brave, the creators, the people who are willing to put it all together differently. David Serero is certainly one of those people. It's no mystery why he's been named one of the 15 most influential Moroccans worldwide. David, thank you for joining us for this conversation.

Adrian, it's really an honor. I really appreciate your time and your generosity. And Rabbi Beyo, I don't know what to tell you besides the fact that I love you from the bottom of my heart. You're a very big influence, and I really appreciate you, and god bless you, my dear friend, for what you do for me. And the Jewish culture owes you a lot, a lot, a lot.

Thank you very much.

Thank you for being you.

Thank you.

If you enjoyed today's show, please subscribe to Conversation with the Rabbi on your favorite podcast app. You can also find the latest episodes online at ConversationWithTheRabbi.com. For all of here at PHX.fm, I'm Adrian McIntyre. Thanks for listening, and please join us for the next Conversation with the Rabbi.