Measure for Measure

Synopsis

In a dark and sinful city, where fear prevails, no one is safe - not even those who have given their lives to God. Isabella is a novice nun, committed to her vows of chastity. Claudio her brother enjoys the company of prostitutes and pleasures of the flesh. In a city where vice is rife, Duke Vincentio has lost control and disappears from public life leaving his cousin Angelo to rule in his place. Angelo begins by reinstating old laws long forgotten...laws that condemn those to death for having sex outside of marriage. It is not long before Claudio is caught. When Claudio summons Isabella to his aid however, Angelo himself is tempted to fall and presents Isabella with an impossible choice; perpetual damnation or her brother's life?

Our Review:

16 February 2006

The joint Complicite/National Theatre production returns to the South Bank after a brief tour and with a change of cast. While the production retains some of its power, it is perhaps less of a nightmare vision.

First and foremost, the part of the Duke is being played by the director, Simon McBurney rather than David Troughton – a change that is really not for the better; McBurney plays the Duke as a well-meaning, bumbling old stick without any of the sense of hidden menace that Troughton brought to the role. In particular, the ending, where Isaballa is just as much in danger of being sexually subdued by him as by Angelo, loses a lot of its power.

However, the introduction of a new Angelo, Angus Wright, is more felicitous. Like his predecessor, Paul Rhys, Wright is almost sickened by the sexual yearnings aroused in him by Isabella. But in Wright, a long-legged gaunt figure, we can see how his longings are corrupting his very body – his anguished twisting and squirm...

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Latest User Review

62.253.64.18) - 13 March 2006:

The design of this production is for the most part excellent - and the use of projection often brilliant when the angles of the cameras mean that while Isabella looks at her brother in the prison scene the screens show her looking out up the the audience as if we were the ones having to take Claudio's judgement. True also that the play rattles along at a good pace - although here some of the weaknesses occur as this is one of the most complex of Shakespeare's plays in terms of the issues facing the characters and the action. At this pace, things have little time to develop and this appears to hit at some of the characterisation. Angelo is convincing with some nice touches concerning razor blades and self harm, but I was bemused by Simon McBurney's Duke - for me it either needs to be played for comedy (as Mark Rylance did at the globe) or with far more danger than he is here where he comes over as a bit of a dirty old man. Naomi Frederick's Isabella is eanest enough but again I think her plight is not helped by the pace of the production. Interesting and enjoyable - but not as good as I had been expecting given the praise heaped on the initial show....

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