My girlfriend and I have a running debate about The Merchant of Venice. I think it's anti-Semitic; she doesn't. I see Shylock as a Shakespearean villain; she views him as a tragic hero. I was thrilled by a New York Observer article that ranted about misguided attempts to sanitize the play; she hated the article so much that she hasn't picked up the paper since. As you might imagine, we prepared ourselves for an argument when we went to see Gareth Armstrong's Off-Broadway show Shylock -- but, surprisingly, we left the theater in agreement. The British writer-performer handles the controversial character and subject masterfully.

Armstrong's ambivalence on the issue of anti-Semitism in Th[...]