| Measure For Measure | by William Shakespeare | Directed by Jeri Pitcher | Produced by the Theater at Monmouth | in repertory, through August 23 | 207.933.9999 |
Unsavoriness is rife in old Vienna. The land is riddled with fornicators and lascivious backroom dealers — and they’re not confined to the brothels, either. But who is qualified to judge these transgressors, and to punish them? What is, and what should be, the basis of law that rules them?These are the confounding questions of Shakespeare’s challenging Measure for Measure. Known by scholars as one of the Bard’s “problem plays” because it is difficult to classify by genre, Measure examines the complexity, fallibility, and relativity of the practice of passing judgement, and its resolutions are, eerily, both happy and troubling. This under-performed but fascinating play is on stage at The Theater at Monmouth, under the direction of Jeri Pitcher.
To get a better view of Vienna’s corrupt underbelly, the concerned Duke (R. Chris Reeder) leaves his judicial duties in the hands of his deputy Angelo (Mark S. Cartier) and secretly goes undercover. Disguised as a friar, the Duke mingles with law-breakers and -makers, observing how justice is meted out. The quandary of the day concerns young noble Claudio (Dustin Tucker):
Because he has gotten his betrothed with child, Claudio has been sentenced to death for fornication. He and Juliet (Miranda Libkin) are deeply in love and married in all but the legal sense, but none of that matters to Angelo, a hard-ass adherent to the letter of the law. Claudio entreats his sister Isabella (Anna Soloway), who is about to become a nun, to plead with Angelo. At first, the acting justice denies her, but is then shocked to find himself lusting after her chastity. He proposes a little quid pro quo, and on this prospect hangs the rest of the story.
As you might suspect, Angelo is a complicated character, with a range of self-contradictions. Cartier expresses most of Angelo’s qualities with acuity and an appealing economy of style. He does fine work in relating Angelo’s rigidity and disdain, his bafflement at his feelings for Isabella, his brief frailty in the wake of her refusal, and his subsequent rage. What his portrayal lacks is a fuller expression of that sudden and bewildering lust that sets so much in motion. Cartier’s work is beautiful as we see Angelo’s disconcerted reaction to his lust, as he talks himself up to acting on it, and as he propositions Isabella, but that initial surge of ardor needs more visceral heat.
In the magnificent Soloway’s hands, Isabella’s moral strength is nuanced but powerful, visibly confounding and devastating Angelo. As Claudio, the poor regular guy whose head is at the center of all this, Tucker has great range, moving in and out of both high drama and comedy, and has an uncommon ability to make Shakespeare’s language feel like our own.
In Price's hands, Lucio, Claudio’s rascally friend, is a big source of comic relief and the unabashed banter of moral equivocation. As the Duke, lurking about in a cowl, Reeder conveys well a searching earnestness, although there’s something a little too soft-focus about him — he could use a sharper dose of nobility in his bearing.
