On Saturday Ann and I went to the North Side of Chicago to the Pride Arts Center to see The Merchant of Venice as performed on a small stage by Invictus Theatre Co., which did a first-rate job.

Besides enjoying the steady stream Shakespearean turns of phrase — as with any of his works — by seeing that play, we were also dipping our toes into the unending argument about how to interpret the play and especially Shylock.

The modern urge is to want Shylock to be sympathetic, and he is sometimes, such as in his righteous anger. Yet sometimes he’s not, as when he bemoans not his lost daughter, but the money she took with her. I doubt that Elizabethan audiences concerned themselves much with understanding Shylock, however nuanced Shakespeare made him. They just were looking to be entertained, and probably booing and hissing at Shylock was fully part of that.

But we bring centuries of further history with us when we see the play. Invictus referenced this explicitly by setting the action in Fascist Italy, with costumes specific to that period — including the stylish dresses of upper-class women of the time, but also blackshirts. The setting added an extra layer of menace to the situation Shylock found himself in, making him easier to sympathize with.

Also emphasized: Shylock as an outsider. Joseph Beal, who did a fine turn with the part, played it with a Yiddish accent, which might not have meant anything to Venetians of 1600 or even 1938, but which marks him apart from the rest of the cast to our ears.

There are comic elements in the play, of course, some of which actually were funny, especially when Portia’s suitors mulled which box to pick to win her hand. A young actor named Jack Morsovillo briefly stole the show as the comic Arragon in that scene. Though it wasn’t all that funny, the play also featured the comic conceit of two men unable to recognize their wives simply because they were pretending to be men.

In this production, a silent addition marked the end of the play. Jessica, the daughter who abandoned Shylock, emerges on one side of the stage, looking miserably torn about the decision she’s made. Shylock emerges on the other side of the stage, looking at her. Are they going to reconcile? Quarrel? Before anything is said, two blackshirts come from behind Shylock, grab him and take him away.

Quite an ending, even if appended for a modern audience, for a play that’s technically a comedy. So the production was squarely in this new(ish) tradition — since the 19th century, I believe — of making Shylock more victim than monster, but hardly all victim. Well done, Invictus.