measure for measure
shakespeare in the rough
the national post

Shakespeare in the Rough can get very rough. This Measure for Measure is a fresh and intelligent show, subject to spasms of embarrassing foolishness.

Having gone through the play's opening scene, the actors suddenly break into the prologue from Henry V, exhorting us to "eke out their imperfections and to think when they talk of horses that we see them" (not that anybody in Measure ever does talk of horses) and then proceed to read us our rights in the matter of not taking photographs and there being an intermission and so on.

It's weird; they are all too young to have seen the 1950s revue At the Drop of a Hat but both these little wheezes were tried out, to rather funnier effect, in that show.

When the intermission actually rolls around, things get even grimmer. The actors interrupt one of the play's key speeches, an odd one in rhyming couplets, to announce that it doesn't scan (it does) and that Shakespeare probably didn't write it (who says?) and that we may now all go and relieve ourselves. By now they have got a decent production going but they seem terrified that if they don't send themselves up they will be thought stuffy or, horror of horrors, classical. This kind of self-consciousness is not good for them or for us.

Sue Miner's production is especially distinguished by the quality of its exits and entrances, which is a higher compliment than it may sound. The action unfolds on a carpet surrounded by parkland; you can see the actors coming and going from a long way off, and the director uses the perspective to fill out the story and create something of a world.

This is a play in which different social classes come together under the impact of the, mostly arbitrary, law. Two consecutive scenes show us a remarkably muddled police-court case, about disorderly conduct in a brothel, and the religious novice Isabella pleading for the life of her brother, condemned for impregnating his girlfriend. We see the parties in both causes all together at the back of the stage, waiting for their hearings, and the effect is very telling.

It seems a shame, though, that, having included in this lineup the usually unseen character of one Mistress Elbow, the director has not found anything for her to do. She works her nine-strong company very hard, having them cover not only the scripted roles but a generous supply of supers as well. A whole posse of nuns patrols the environment, symbolizing the convent-life to which the heroine may or may not return. You half expect them to break into a chorus of "How do you solve a problem like Isabella?" but they are very effective.

The production is stronger on atmosphere than interpretation. The meaning of this notoriously ambiguous play hinges on our response to the character of the Duke of Vienna (Adrian Griffin), who abandons his realm in the first scene, leaving it in the care of the Puritan deputy Angelo, and then hangs around disguised as a Friar desperately trying to correct the excesses of both old and new regimes.

He could be an all-wise saviour, an unscrupulous manipulator or (most likely) something well intentioned but fallible in-between. He starts this production returning from what seems a rather mild night on the town and plays the opening scene with a hang-over; perhaps this is why he seems to have difficulty remembering, or even understanding, what he's saying.

In disguise, he is anonymous; in his own person, he wears shabby leather gear that makes everyone's acceptance of his authority hard to credit. Hints of his being a hypocritical playboy are never followed through; and it's impossible to care whether his final marriage to Isabella counts as coercion or as a happy ending.

Angelo (Michael Proudfoot) silently conveys embarrassment when he's offered the job and smugness when he gets it, but nothing when he actually talks.

Leanna Brodie's Isabella is much the most accomplished of the leading trio; she cannot bring off everything she tries for but she gives the character an unexpected capacity for humour, bred not of perception but of inexperience. When Angelo tries to blackmail and seduce her, she laughs; she simply can't believe it. When she tries to persuade her brother to accept death as the price of her chastity, she jollies him into it. She simply can't conceive of his saying no. It makes sense.

The most authoritative performance comes from Richard Alan Campbell as the cynic Lucio. Notable among the supports are Jane Moffat as the sensible justice Escalus, here transformed into a woman (who ends a day in court by going home with her assistant for a lesbian afternoon), and Anthony Malarky, a conscientious Provost in a security jacket.