Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure raises important questions about justice and how some succeed as well as fail.
“Some rise by sin and some by virtue fall,” is but one truism that speaks to political leadership today as much as it did in 1604, the year the play was first produced. Another, perhaps even more poignant, spoken by Isabella, who, in this year’s Interlochen Shakespeare Festival production is the central protagonist, the voice of reason as well as justice, is “O, it is excellent to have a giant’s strength, but it is tyrannous to use it like a giant.”
There is cold comfort in the awareness that what the world faces today is not unique to our time. And while Measure for Measure, considered Shakespeare’s last play, a “problem play”, shot through with wild shifts between comedy and psychological drama as well as an ambiguous tone, isn’t exactly comforting, it is a most excellent and artful exploration of characters and themes particularly resonant today.
The story unfolds in Vienna amid a temporary regime change. Duke Vincentio disguises himself as a friar to keep watch over his deputy Angelo whom he’s entrusted to rule the city in his absence. Angelo persecutes Claudio for the crime of fornication (he’s slept with the woman who’s about to become his wife) for which he’ll be executed. When Claudio’s sister Isabella, a novice nun, begs Angelo to show her brother mercy, he offers a deal: he’ll spare her brother’s life if she’ll give him her virginity. But is saving her brother’s life worth her immortal soul? The plot thickens as the Duke surreptitiously intervenes, and mistaken identities, the promise of another execution and the possibility of several weddings ensue—all familiar Shakespeare shenanigans.
Though it's not just the story that makes this production of “Measure for Measure” relevant. Prostitutes, pimps, and cops swagger about the set dressed in crushed velvet, bell bottoms, platform boots, animal print, and fedoras (delightful costumes by Amanda Lifvendahl) designed by Edward T. Morris to look like a seedy New York City street scene in the 1970s, complete with tagged exposed brick, a subway entrance, a filthy stoop, a fire escape, and more—with lights by Nicklas Casella and sound by Emily Duncan Wilson to effectively complete the picture.
Director William Church’s concept is not unlike that of the Goodman Theatre’s 2013 production of the show in Chicago, and though 1970s New York City is most definitely not the same as the capital of Austria 400-plus years ago, it’s a fun twist that milks both the comic elements as well as the themes of justice and morality for a contemporary audience while also creating a distinct time and place.
The comedy comes largely in Myles Mathews’ delightfully physical performance as Lucio, the clown-like figure in the play, though many choices large and small embodied by ensemble members such as Quinlan Welch as a cop and Laura Ames Mittelstaedt as Mistress Overdone as well as Keith Contreras-McDonald as Pompey are wonderfully funny.
Mishka Yarovoy is a villainous Angelo and Kaylin Gines a melodramatic and singularly-focused Isabella while David Montee provides terrific grounding to the unfolding action as Escalus. And Michael Liebhauser creates a complex and nuanced Duke Vincentio as well as his friar alter-ego made distinct with a hat, tinted glasses, and a Bronx accent. He’s far too likable to come across as duplicitous, though at the end his attempt to steal Isabella could be read as just as self-serving as Angelo’s actions.
But the way this production handles Measure for Measure’s ending gently rewrites Shakespeare’s original resolution is most satisfying and puts Isabella in the righteous driver’s seat. Her life and commitments are ultimately her choice.
It’s an excellent update, one that brings a sense of satisfaction if not hope to the cruel and unjust world on stage that effectively reflects Vienna at the turn of the 17th Century, New York City of the 1970s, as well as today. This is the power of Shakespeare handled as assuredly as that of the Interlochen Shakespeare Festival, an annual summer treat that shows again and again why the Bard’s works endure.
Measure for Measure
Interlochen
June 27-July 5
interlochen.org
