The current production of Shakespeare's Measure for Measure at Stratford is a splendid piece of work, even if it is by no means the last word on this multi-sided and puzzling script.
Director Martha Henry was famed for her portrayal of the central female figure, Isabella, in Robin Phillips' legendary production of 1975 and 1976. I was curious to see how this front-rank actor and director, herself now a legend in Canadian theatre, would approach the challenge of staging the play without falling back on memories of that earlier outing.
(It intrigued me because I have seen other directors revisit work for which they previously directed or performed specially famed readings. As an example, Michael Langham's last Love's Labour's Lost for Stratford resembled in many particulars the accounts I have read of his iconic first Stratford production of 1961.)
Martha Henry took the bull by the horns in her note for the programme, asserting that whenever she found anything looking or sounding too comfortable her instinct was rather to get as far away from it as possible. To give it in her own words: "...one day you realize that you could not repeat what was done before even if you wanted to -- it's not physically possible."
The floor of the Tom Patterson stage carried an effective pattern of indoor wood merging with outdoor stonework. The gates at the back, in the form of a steel cage, appeared at first to lock the world away but later clearly could be felt as a cage locking the characters in.
In this so-called "comedy", there are undeniably funny moments (as in all Shakespeare plays) but the general tone is dark indeed. I suspect one reason why the play is not as popular as some is that the playwright has all too accurately held up the mirror in which we see ourselves, our hypocrisy, our moral flexibility, reflected with brutal clarity. Martha Henry's production supported this mirror better than any other I have seen by the sheer ordinariness of the people in the play, in dress and manner. The decision to set the play in 1949 effectively brought it into the lifetimes of at least the older members of the audience, and the visual effect of the piece was plainly modern without being aggressively so.
The modernity of expression and movement matched the look, and was most in evidence in the two central characters of the play's main plotline -- Isabella and Angelo. As Angelo, Tom Rooney appeared so ordinary that the Duke's decision to settle all power in Vienna in his hands appeared almost as wilful and pointless as Lear's division of his kingdom. It was by slow degrees that the curtain was edged aside to show the depravity within, and Rooney's special achievement was to clearly show us how the good and evil in him contended for mastery, with the evil winning out. Much more true to life than simply having him as a man of pure evil.
In the key female role of Isabella, Carmen Grant convincingly portrayed a young woman made naïve by an excess of overt goodness. Here, the evolution was the gradual awakening of her conscious mind to the depths of immorality surrounding her. In a sense, though, Grant was perhaps miscast for a person enmeshed in such troubles. I can't recall seeing her perform before, but she appears to have one of those faces whose basic expression when at rest is a cheery smile. It was a little disconcerting to see her approach Angelo with this happy face when her mission was to answer his most unwelcome amorous proposals.
I felt that Geraint Wyn Davies as Duke Vincentio was the (relatively) weak link among the three principal roles. During the scenes where the Duke appears disguised as a friar, his playing could have incorporated less of the comic mannerisms he's used in more clownish roles. For instance, his voice kept turning into the voice of the drunken Stephano in The Tempest from a few years back -- a disconcerting reminder of a very different role in a very different play! His appearances as the Duke at the opening and final scenes of the play were much the most effective part of the performance.
Among the various supporting roles, I have to single out two. Stephen Russell, a long-time Stratford veteran, for making a very good thing indeed out of the role of the Provost. In clarity of delivery he outshone a number of the other actors, and lent much strength to the show on each of his appearances. Brian Tree provided a hilarious performance as the officious policeman Elbow, saluting repeatedly with exact mechanical precision and marching in and out (and speaking!) in a delicious caricature of a pompous British colonial soldier.
The general arc of the play moved briskly and convincingly without either slowing down or overspeeding, and variation in pace was deployed sensitively and effectively among all the cast.
If this wasn't precisely a Measure for Measure for the ages, it was definitely a good strong take on a play loaded with more than its fair share of traps for the unwary -- and for that, I give a full share of the credit to Martha Henry's overarching vision. Definitely a Measure for our time.
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