Measure for Measure (RSC/Live from Stratford-upon-Avon) @ The Broadway, Nottingham
August 1, 2019
Gregory Doran’s new Measure for Measure seemed, at times, to be almost defiantly setting itself against ‘relevance’. Eschewing the contemporary settings of several recent productions that have more explicitly responded to the #MeToo moment and the abuses of power in the highest offices (whether political, entertainment, sports), Doran returned to the text’s setting of Vienna, but updated …
Measure for Measure @ The Donmar Warehouse
September 30, 2018
NB: this piece is based on a preview performance. When Josie Rourke announced that she would be staging a radical revisioning of Measure for Measure that would involve the actors playing Angelo and Isabella switching roles halfway through, there was no way she could have known the context in which the first previews would be …
Measure for Measure @ The Young Vic
October 14, 2015
One key moment in Measure for Measure exemplified the difference between Dominic Dromgoole’s production at the Globe and this, Joe Hill-Gibbins’s very different take at the Young Vic. In Dromgoole’s production, when Mariah Gale’s Isabella promised to claw out Angelo’s eyes, she simply and quietly removed her cap, revealing for the first time her long …
Measure for Measure @ Shakespeare’s Globe
The Globe has two key advantages in staging Measure for Measure. The first, to which I’ll return, is that everyone is always watching. In a play so concerned with surveillance, overhearing, manipulating events from behind the scene, the absolute exposure of the Globe stage breaks down any illusion of privacy, forcing every character to account …
Measure for Measure (Cheek by Jowl) @ The Barbican – live stream
April 22, 2015
I have already written two reviews of Cheek by Jowl’s Measure for Measure (here and here), but tonight I had an opportunity to see it again, this time in the company’s first ever live broadcast. Firstly, it’s an extraordinary offering. A prestigious production being broadcast internationally for free online is a bold statement, and canny. …
Measure for Measure (Cheek by Jowl) @ The Silk Street Theatre, Barbican
April 17, 2015
These notes supplement my review of the production in Moscow, here. The production I travelled to Moscow to see performed before a native speaking audience has made it at last to the UK, with a new Duke, an updated design and English-language (Shakespearean) surtitles. Although Cheek by Jowl defines itself as a multinational company, performances …
Measure for Measure (Cheek by Jowl) @ The Pushkin Theatre, Moscow
November 24, 2014
At a hair under two hours long, Declan Donnellan and Nick Ormerod’s Measure for Measure stripped the play back to its bare bones. Elbow’s subplot was gone, Pompey’s tenure as hangman reduced to a few fragmented lines, Lucio’s relationship with the disguised Duke barely alluded to. In place of the intersecting subplots, Donnellan’s direction asserted …
Measure for Measure (RSC) @ The Swan Theatre, Stratford
February 17, 2012
Onto a bare stage strode Raymond Coulthard’s Duke. Smiling to the audience, he raised his arms and, with commanding gestures, caused the house lights to be brought down, the music to stop and the on-stage lamps to illuminate. From its very beginning, Roxana Silbert’s new production of Measure for Measure established the Duke’s absolute control …
Measure for Measure @ The Almeida Theatre
April 2, 2010
Writing about web page http://www.almeida.co.uk/production_details/production_details.aspx?code=90 I’ve been waiting for quite some time to see a good Measure for Measure. It’s a play I love on the page, but which I’ve always been bored by in the theatre. Happily, Michael Attenborough’s Almeida production finally met that wish, with strong performances and a simple, persuasive interpretation bringing …
Measure For Measure (Theatre Royal Bath/Peter Hall Company) @ The Courtyard Theatre
September 14, 2006
This show marked the first appearance of the Peter Hall Company at the RSC– Peter Hall being the artistic director who founded the modern RSC back in the day. There was therefore a lot of prestige and expectation behind this production, the first major non-RSC event to be staged at the Courtyard Theatre. It looked …
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