A Measured Response

Tonight was my third trip up to the Colorado Shakespeare Festival, following King Lear and The Fantasticks. This time it was for Shakespeare's Measure for Measure, officially classified a comedy, but considered by some to be a "problem play." It's certainly a strange one, and my lack of familiarity with it before tonight made the experience a surprise.

It starts off hewing close to many conventions that appear in other Shakespearean plays. The Duke of Vienna announces his plans to leave the city for a time, leaving his duties to his stern deputy, Angelo. In truth, the Duke plans to adopt a secret identity as a friar so that he might see what happens in his absence. Angelo begins a crusade of sorts in the cause of moral rectitude, ordering the death of a man (Claudio) who has impregnated the woman he's engaged to (Juliet). Out of wedlock! Gasp! The man's sister, Isabella, leaves the convent where she is in training to become a nun and beseeches Angelo to commute the sentence. Lustful for her, Angelo proposes a bargain: if she will submit to his advances, he will spare her brother's life.

The "problem play" classification comes from this intrusion of decidedly dark subject matter into what is ostensibly a comedy. But there are jokes, particularly spawned from a subplot in which a braggart character, Lucio, repeatedly badmouths the departed Duke to the friar who is actually the Duke in disguise. But for me, the "problem" nature of this play stems from the increasingly bizarre behavior of the Duke as the play rolls on from there.

First, the Duke could simply come out of hiding and stay the execution. Instead, he concocts an elaborate ruse based around a woman he knows who was once engaged to Angelo. Isabella is to tell Angelo she agrees to sleep with him, under the conditions that it be in total darkness, and that there be no talking. Then this cast-off fiancee will show up to do the deed in Isabella's stead.

Makes perfect sense, right?

Then, when Angelo orders the beheading of Claudio anyway, the Duke could again come out of hiding to set things right, but this time decides to shave the head of another executed prisoner and send it to Angelo, claiming it to be Claudio's head. And then he tells Isabella that Claudio has already been executed, so that she'll be good and angry to lay into Angelo later.

Wait. What?

Then the Duke "returns" to Vienna, whereupon he orders Isabella's arrest when she confronts Angelo. Hearing that "a friar" might bear witness on the matter, he then ducks away to come back in disguised once more. He generally screws with everyone for his own amusement for the entire fifth act before revealing himself and going about setting things right. He then reveals Claudio, whom he kept in hiding, and not executed after all. And since Isabella will naturally be so relieved to see her brother after thinking him dead, and not at all be pissed that the Duke just completely messed with her for no good reason, the Duke naturally proposes that Isabella marry him.

Have we left the planet?

Of this absolutely insane conclusion, I can only remark that at least Shakespeare doesn't actually have Isabella respond verbally to the proposal before the "curtain closes" on the play. Thus, it is a matter of interpretation for the production whether she accepts or not. I gather most productions stay true to what was surely the intent at the time -- that she accepts, and that everyone lives happily ever after. This production has her stride past the Duke and exit the stage. Damn straight, woman!

There were plenty of other things this production got right too. The actors playing the Duke (Robert Sicular) and Isabella (Lenne Klingaman) were both very strong. I can't claim that either of them were able to make complete sense of two roles that have a lot of internal inconsistencies on the page, two characters that the passing centuries have not been kind to. I don't think any actor could make complete sense of them. But the former definitely found the funny moments for the Duke, while the latter skillfully played the profound emotion of poor Isabella in her plight.

There were two other major talents in the cast, both in comic relief roles. Timothy Orr played Lucio, the braggart character I mentioned earlier; Stephen Weltz played another comical character, Pompey. Both managed to get many hearty laughs from the audience. While the moral sensibilities of the play may have seemed really bizarre with the passage of time, these two actors made their jokes as fresh as anything from a modern movie. Very good work indeed.

I suppose that as for play itself, I started off liking it, but my confusion at the course of the plot won out over time, leaving me of two minds about it all. But I think there were enough strong actors in the cast to make it worthwhile. So overall, another good night at the theater.