Review: Old Globe's ‘Measure for Measure' a twisty power struggle
There’s an old English saying that power tends to corrupt, but absolute power corrupts absolutely.
That’s the case in William Shakespeare’s 1603 play “Measure for Measure,” which opened in a new production at The Old Globe on Saturday. Directed by Vivienne Benesch on the Globe’s outdoor Lowell Davies Festival Theatre stage, it’s the first of two Shakespeare festival comedies this summer.
But describing “Measure for Measure” a comedy is one of the reasons it’s called a “problem play.” It employs some of Shakespeare’s favorite comic devices, like a tryst with a woman in disguise, bawdy jokes and wise fools. But it also deals frankly with darker subjects like prostitution, sexual blackmail, out-of-wedlock pregnancy and a beheading.
In Benesch’s staging it’s a shape-shifting comic morality tale with many shades of gray. The wit is dry and precise and there’s a sharper point to the social criticism than in any of Shakespeare’s earlier, crowd-pleasing comedies.
Benesch has retained Shakespeare’s original setting of the play in Vienna, but she has moved it forward to 1930, when the Austrian city was a hotbed of violence between battling right-wing and left-leaning paramilitary forces.
The political winds shifted constantly in pre-Anschluss Austria, a situation cleverly rendered by scenic and costume designer Lex Liang with a rapid change in uniform and banner colors and a section of fence that continuously spins on a circular track, representing the quicksilver power changes between the powerful and powerless and the libertine and chaste.
As the production opens, Vienna’s streets are rife with poverty, crime and prostitution, but the city’s soft-hearted and emotionally disconnected Duke Vincentio refuses to enforce the state’s harsh new morality laws. Instead, Vincentio puts his rule-bound deputy Angelo in charge of enforcement, then disguises himself as a friar and disappears into the crowd.
When a Viennese man named Claudio inpregnates his girlfriend out of wedlock, he is arrested and sentenced o death. Claudio’s sister, the pure-hearted novitiate Isabella, pleads with Angelo to save her brother’s life, but Angelo will only agree to the deal if Isabella will have sex with him.
“Measure for Measure” pops up on local stages every four or five years and each director interprets the characters and their words differently. In this production, Amelia Pedlow gives a wonderful multifaceted performance as Isabella, an innocent who gradually discovers and learns to relish her feminine power before the twist ending potentially snuffs it out.
Sam Lilja’s Angelo begins as a quiet, plain-vanilla bureaucrat who is transformed and corrupted by his own lust. And Ato Blankson-Wood brings subtle nuance to both of his characters, the Duke in disguise and the kind-natured Friar, the latter the role he’s clearly best suited for.
Calvin Leon Smith crackles with glee as the manipulative Lucio, a braggart who gets caught up in his lies. Bruce Turk is warm and wise as the Duke’s compassionate adviser Escalus. Katie MacNichol adds comic relief as the squealing Viennese brothel owner Mistress Overdone. And David T. Patterson takes some amusing intellectual turns as Isabella’s conflicted brother Claudio.
The production features a cast of 21, with sound by Melanie Chen Cole, lighting by Russell H. Champa and choreography by Javier Velasco.
The production runs two hours, 30 minutes, with intermission. Like many of the Bard’s comedies, it has far more plot complications than necessary. But it’s still a well-paced and entertaining evening, and with its dangling final “will she or won’t she” moment, it makes for good conversation on the drive home.
‘Measure for Measure’
When: 8 p.m. Tuesdays through Sundays. Through July 12
Where: Lowell Davies Festival Theatre, The Old Globe, 1363 Old Globe Way, Balboa Park, San Diego
Tickets: $38 and up
Phone: 619-234-5623
Online:theoldglobe.org
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