Peter Viney's Blog

Measure For Measure
By William Shakespeare

Directed by Gregory Doran
Designed by Stephen Bromson Lewis

Royal Shakespeare Company
Royal Shakespeare Theatre
Stratford-Upon-Avon

Saturday 6th July 2019, 13.15, matinee

CAST:

Lucy Phelps – Isabella, a novice nun
Sandy Grierson – Angelo, deputy to the duke
Antony Byrne – The Duke of Vienna

with

David Ajao- Pompey, a pimp
Joseph Arkley- Lucio, a rakish gent
Hannah Azuonye – Lady, singer / prostitute
Patrick Brennan – Abhorson (the executioner) / Friar Thomas
Graeme Brooks – Mistress Overdone, brothel keeper / Barnadine, the condemned man
Melody Brown – Justice / prostitute
James Cooney- Claudio, brother to Isabella
Tom Dawze – Froth, a foppish gent
Amanda Harris- Provost, keeper of the prison
Karina Jones- Sister Francisca
Sophie Khan Levy- Mariana, Angelo’s abandoned fiancée / prostitute
Alexanda Mushore – Gent
Michael Patrick- Elbow, a constable
Claire Price – Escalus, a councillor
Amy Trigg- Juliet, pregnant lover of Claudio

There’s something intrinsically unlikeable about Measure For Measure, though back in 2015, Dominic Dromgoole’s version at the Globe was magnificently hilarious.

I’ll save the first waltz for you …

I’ve said before I’d like to see this play use its Vienna setting by showing us early 20th century Vienna, the time of Freud and Klimt. They’ve gone for that (slightly) and included the waltzes … I was thinking most of Egon Schiele and Vienna decadence as a visual cue.

The plot: the leader decides it’s resignation time. The city is full of porn and depravity. The main major political leaders are serially unfaithful and married several times. Knife crime rules the streets, but the leader has failed to get a grip on the manifold problems. Time to hand over the reins of power, to one of two candidates who will then rule the city. The answer is to go as far to the right as possible and let a total bastard have the job … hang on! Sorry. That was my rant on the Conservative leadership contest. It must have got pasted in.

The Duke (Antony Byrne_ hands over power to his deputy (Sandy Grierson)

So back to Shakespeare:  we have Duke Vincentio who has decided he has lost his grip. He is going to hand over power for a time to a deputy while he nips off to Poland for a long holiday, and chooses the puritanical uptight prig Angelo rather than the more experienced Escalus. He wants a bit if severity. Really, the Duke is going to dress himself as a friar or monk, and observe goings on.

Sandy Grierson as Angelo

Young Claudio has been arrested for getting his girlfriend Juliet pregnant, and is sentenced to death by strict-discipline, cold fish, merciless Angelo. Isabella, Claudio’s sister, is about to enter a nunnery as a novice when Claudio is arrested.

Lucio (Joseph Arkley), Claudio (James Cooney), The Provost (Amanda Harris)

Some gents who know Claudio, Lucio and Froth, persuade Isabella to leave the convent and plead for Claudio’s life. She goes to Angelo to beg for mercy, but Angelo (like so many puritans) finds all this most arousing, and proposes to swap her brother’s life for a quickie. With Angelo, it would be quick. Nevertheless, the virtuous Isabella chooses to have a a dead brother over a lost maidenhead.

There’s a long sub plot of comic bawds and tapsters. Lucio and the gents are clients of Mistress Overdone’s brothel. Lucio has impregnated one of the prostitutes. The pimp, Pompey, is arrested. Lucio lets himself down, boasting in front of the disguised Duke that he knows the Duke as a lecher.

The Duke, disguised as a Friar, visits Claudio (James Cooney) in prison.

The disguised Duke intervenes to aid Isabella, and suggests Mariana, the woman Angelo deserted when she lost her dowry, substitute for Isabella in the dark. Early Jacobeans, one thinks, would have been greatly used to low light and suss it, but dodgy deeds in the dark are the plot hinge of a lot of plays of the era. Maybe people didn’t talk much, and there were no cigarettes to light afterwards. Angelo, being a total bastard, is to have Claudio decapitated anyway. The Duke stops that (not that he considers informing Isabella), and arranges for a dead pirate’s head to be sent to Angelo, who perhaps being squeamish, will not look hard enough to realize it’s not Claudio. All is revealed, the Duke casts off his robes, pardons Claudio, saves Isabella from Angelo … then decides he’ll have her instead.

Usually the way that the play see-saws in and out of comedy leaves a bitter taste. None of the major male characters come out well. The exception was Escalus, the guy the Duke should have put in charge of the city rather than Angelo, and here, our lone honest male has become female, played by Clair Price. Then Amanda Harris plays The Provost, but looks sufficiently fierce. The gender swap goes both ways … Mistress Overdone is played by Graeme Brooks, and very well too. He also does a very funny Barnadine, the condemned prisoner.  Cuts helped. Both parts are acted “large” but no worse for it.

Graeme Brooks as Barnadine, the condemned man

They failed to capitalise on the early 20th century Vienna references in spite of full size Egon Schiele and Gustav Klimt pictures in the programme. Of course, relating it to Vienna is making use of a peripheral reference.  Shakespeare gave Vienna a duke, like the Italian city states he normally used. Shakespeare’s Viennese had Italianate names. He would have known it was the seat of the Holy Roman Emperor (also Archduke of Austria) and dissing the Hapsburgs as ruling a decadent city was a winner in front of the new king, James I in 1604. His geography extended to knowing Poland and Bohemia were reasonably near. On the other hand, characteristics of the Duke are said to deliberately reference the King.

I thought they got the start all wrong. A sedate Viennese waltz was followed by the Duke moaning about the licentiousness of the city and appointing Angelo as his deputy. What licentiousness? We haven’t seen any.  They need a scene (as done so well near the start  of  Part 2) of noisy ensemble yobbish mayhem – a pre-show would have done it, but maybe they thought that would be echoing Dominic Dromgoole’s 2015 Globe version too closely. Nevertheless, it’s the right thing to do. A one minute interruption between waltz and speech would have done it too. On the Egon Schiele connection, Mistress Overdone’s brothel has three girls. Schiele’s Vienna had wider and more varied tastes. They ignored that possibility.

Mistress Overdone’s working girls: Melody Brown, Sophie Khan Levy, Hannah Azuonye. We needed more licentiousness.

Mirrors, then projections did a lot for the set – Vienna streets, an impressionist garden, the railway station. Though the impressionist garden to start Part 2 came from nowhere. The singer sang a song, while Mariana looked on. Lovely singing, dreadful song. The instrumental music was much better.

Vincentio, The Duke of Vienna has lost his name in this production, and is merely “The Duke.”  Antony Byrne is a fine duke, using sudden vocal changes or mannerisms to extract humour. He does a high voice when he doesn’t want people to see through his friar disguise. He’s getting solid Duke practice, as he’s also the duke in As You Like It this season. A duke specialist, indeed.

Lucy Phelps as Isabella

The play stands and falls on Isabella and Angelo. In these days when sexual harassment is so prominent in the news, Isabella (Lucy Phelps) is the key role. What with playing Rosalind in As You Like It, this is a major year for her. We thought the interpretation too modern. This Isabella looks athletic, she sounds assertive. (Maybe something carried over from our seeing her as Rosalind so recently). The role works best when she’s unworldly, cowed, powerless, and indeed “plain.” In 1604, a woman with no power or role except entering a nunnery. All she has in life is her virginity, a major prize for Angelo, terrified of women in a pox-ridden city. Driving back from Stratford, the radio news was on “a prominent millionaire” and NDAs (Non Disclosure Agreements) and that comes out in the play. When she threatens to expose Angelo he tells her nobody will believe her. They’ve gone for a modern reaction, but I don’t think it fits the text.

Sitting in judgement: Escalus (Claire Price), Angelo (Sandy Grierson), The Justice (Melody Brown)

Similarly, we had queries on Sandy Grierson’s Angelo. He does prig, bully, then at the end, he does riven by guilt while still trying to dissemble – all extremely well and his Scottish accent helps, but that’s not all there is. They added a Da Vinci Code moment when he drops his trousers to reveal a self-flagellation metal band round his bleeding leg. OK … but you need to either develop that, or not bother with it. Here it’s just a quick Dan Brown reference and laugh. The point of power in the play is when Isabella inadvertently touches him and he is suddenly fiercely aroused. We get creepy, but we didn’t get any sense of passion there. She looks suitably horrified, or like an animal frozen in your headlights. The play’s question is whether he’s a hypocrite (we find out he was a bastard to his fiancée when her dowry was lost at sea)  or whether contact with Isabella drove a genuinely uptight religious man to it. It was a touch flat here.

Isabella(Lucy Phelps) and Angelo (Sandy Grierson)

Then there’s the comedy. Lucio is a marvellous role, always outstanding, and Joseph Arkley maintained the tradition of very funny Lucio’s – the best little moment was when he spread his silk hankie on the ground before kneeling to the Duke.

Froth, the fop (Tom Dawze), up before the trio of justices … Angelo, Escalus and “The Justice” is another funny moment. It felt cut. We wanted more

Mistress Overdone (Graeme Brooks) and her pimp, Pompey (David Ajao)

David Ajao was an Afro-Caribbean Jack the Lad as Pompey, the pimp. Excellent throughout. Michael Patrick’s Elbow, the daft constable was Northern Irish. The accent helped, but as ever, you keep thinking, ‘Hang on! Shakespeare used the same jokes for Dogberry in Much Ado About Nothing.’

Pompey has been arrested but gets no sympathy from Lucio

We are going to get all four home countries, because Abhorson the Executioner (Patrick Brennan) is Welsh.

The last scene: Lucio (Joseph Arkley) and bystanders watch the action

I felt the comedy sections were downplayed, leaving a long series of serious duologues at the end of Part One. I felt a lack of ensemble scenes, but the closing scene with the return of the Duke was set in a railway station and looked great. The closing scene, including Isabella’s shock / horror at The Duke cavalierly deciding he’ll take over the Harvey Weinstein role was the best bit of the production. Unfortunately, given her open-mouthed dismay (WTF? in modern terms), they can’t go into the usual closing dance.

Fabulous cast- just look at the links to other productions below. Usual very high standard of set, lighting and costume. It’s a clear version of the play too, though we noticed the intrinsic time issue – an awful lot happens between Claudio being sentenced to die tomorrow morning at eight, and the appointed time of execution. You’re not sure which is day or night and the stage and background is usually dark. . Shakespeare’s fault … it’s built in. Kids write essays on it.

Even so … Overall – a little disappointing

***

WHAT THE CRITICS SAID

I don’t agree with Michael Billington that it’s the best RSC Shakespeare of summer 2019- to us that’s easily The Taming of The Shrew,

4 star
Domenic Cavendish, Telegraph ****
Michael Billington, Guardian ****

Gregory Doran is not the first director to set this dark comedy in early 1900s Vienna. But it’s a decision that makes total sense since the initial image of a glittering waltz-time world gives way to a portrait of public hypocrisy, seething sexuality and a fierce contest between the spiritual and the secular. It is easily the best Shakespeare production of the Stratford summer.

Michael Davies, What’s On Stage ****
Maxie Szalwinska, Sunday Times ****

3 star
Dave Fargnoli, The Stage ***

LINKS ON THIS BLOG
Measure for Measure is playing alongside As You Like It and Taming of The Shrew with several cast members in one or the other.

MEASURE FOR MEASURE
Measure for Measure, RSC 2012
Measure for Measure, Globe 2015
Measure for Measure, Young Vic, 2015

GREGORY DORAN (Director)
Henry IV Parts 1 & 2 RSC
Henry V – Alex Hassell, RSC, 2015
Julius Caesar – RSC 2012
Richard II – RSC 2013, David Tennant as Richard II
The Witch of Edmonton by Rowley, Dekker & Ford, RSC
Death of A Salesman, by Arthur Miller, RSC 2015
King Lear  – RSC 2016
The Tempest, RSC 2016
Troilus & Cressida, RSC 2018

LUCY PHELPS
Dido, Queen of Carthage, Christopher Marlowe, RSC 2017
Antony & Cleopatra, RSC 2017
Julius Caesar, RSC 2017
As You Like It, RSC 2019

SANDY GRIERSON
Dido, Queen of Carthage, Christopher Marlowe, RSC 2017
Dr Faustus, RSC 2016 (Dr Faustus)
A Midsummer Night’s Dream – Headlong 2011
The Comedy of Errors, RSC 2012
The Tempest, RSC 2012 (Ariel)
As You Like It, RSC 2019

ANTONY BYRNE
King Lear, RSC 2016 (Kent)
Antony & Cleopatra, RSC 2017
Henry V, RSC 2015
Henry IV Parts 1 & 2, RSC 2014
As You Like It, RSC 2019

DAVID AJAO
Hecuba, RSC 2015
Othello, RSC 2015
As You Like It, RSC 2019

SOPHIE KHAN LEVY
Loves Labour’s Won, RSC 2014
Love’s Labour’s Lost, RSC 2014
The Taming of The Shrew, RSC 2019
As You Like It, Globe 2018

JAMES COONEY
The Taming of The Shrew, RSC 2019
Troilus & Cressida, RSC 2018
King Lear, RSC 2016
Cymbeline, RSC 2016
Hamlet, RSC 2016

JOSEPH ARKLEY
The Taming of The Shrew, RSC 2019
The Rehearsal, Chichester 2015 (Villebosse)
Richard III, Almeida 2016 (Rivers)
The Witch of Edmonton, RSC 2014
The White Devil, RSC 2014

CLAIRE PRICE
The Taming of The Shrew, RSC 2019
The Way of The World, Chichester 2012

MELODY BROWN
The Taming of The Shrew, RSC 2019

ALEXANDER MUSHORE
The Taming of The Shrew, RSC 2019

AMANDA HARRIS
The Taming of The Shrew, RSC 2019
Troilus & Cressida, RSC 2018

HANNAH AZUONYE
The Taming of The Shrew, RSC 2019

MICHAEL PATRICK
The Taming of The Shrew, RSC 2019