{"id":6164,"date":"2017-07-09T12:30:03","date_gmt":"2017-07-09T17:30:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shakespeareteacher.com\/blog\/?p=6164"},"modified":"2017-08-20T21:46:29","modified_gmt":"2017-08-21T02:46:29","slug":"theatre-measure-for-measure-tfana","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shakespeareteacher.com\/blog\/archives\/6164","title":{"rendered":"Theatre: Measure for Measure<\/em> (TFANA)"},"content":{"rendered":"

I recently had the pleasure of seeing the production of Measure for Measure<\/em> at the Polonsky Center in Brooklyn, performed by Theatre for a New Audience (TFANA). It was a good production; I would even say very good. It didn\u2019t come close to the two other productions I saw in the same space: Pericles and A Midsummer Night\u2019s Dream<\/a>. But that\u2019s an unfairly high bar to set, so let\u2019s just say it was very good. The acting was strong across the board and the play was well communicated. There were some creative choices made with the text, and it was very entertaining to watch from beginning to end. They didn\u2019t seem affected much by the recent controversy of a Trump-like Caesar at the Public Theatre. The Duke was a dead ringer for Justin Trudeau and Angelo was channeling Richard Nixon, and yet I saw no protesters from Canada or the 1970\u2019s.<\/p>\n

The director wanted to create an immersive experience for the audience, and to that end, we were brought into the theatre through a \u201cbrothel\u201d that was set up on the ground floor. Mistress Overdone greeted me with a sultry \u201cHello Papi<\/em>, welcome back. It\u2019s good to see you again.\u201d We walked past displays of adult toys and various rooms where implied sex acts were being performed behind plexiglass walls. It was gimmicky, sure, but I liked it. It made me feel like I was complicit in the decline of Vienna at the start of the play; I had just come from a brothel, after all.<\/p>\n

My main complaint was that the production was a little too cute. It relied too much on jokey gags where the play itself could have sustained the comedy in a much more compelling way. Not always, but too often. In fact, the best scenes in this production were the ones that featured two actors alone on a bare stage communicating with each other using the emotion from the text. These scenes were truly explosive, and were actually the immersive experience the director wanted. \u201cTrust the text\u201d is a clich\u00e9, but it\u2019s a clich\u00e9 for a reason: it works. And it worked here. I\u2019d have liked more of it.<\/p>\n

Also, there\u2019s an actor\u2019s trick where you take one of Shakespeare\u2019s more poetic turns of phrases and pause just before it, delivering the expression as though it were a polite euphemism for what you were really about to say. It\u2019s usually good for a laugh, and I like the trope. But as one can desire too much of a good thing, this production used the device again and again and again. It\u2019s just too cute. <\/p>\n

I had a directing professor in grad school who was fond of the expression \u201cStrong, but wrong.\u201d I always appreciated the way it turned a criticism into a praise, and there were several aspects of this production where I would bestow such a praise.<\/p>\n

One key example was the choice to show the Duke shooting up heroin at the beginning of the play. Here\u2019s why that\u2019s strong: The Duke is motivated by the fact that he is responsible for allowing vice to spread unchecked throughout Vienna. Having him actually be part of the debauchery makes him all the more driven to correct the fault. Here\u2019s why it\u2019s wrong: the play only works if the Duke has the moral authority to skulk around incognito, pulling secret strings and passing judgment \u201clike power divine.\u201d And I suspect that, for this production, that\u2019s a feature and not a bug, but you have to admit that it does undermine to some extent the Duke\u2019s comic scenes with Lucio. How can he be indignant about being called a drunk when he\u2019s actually a junkie?<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve lived in New York City for the past twenty-five years, so I\u2019ve become accustomed to \u201ccolor-blind\u201d casting. But in the shadow of recent events, not the least of which is the acquittal of the police officer who killed Philando Castile, color has become an increasingly harder thing to be blind to. In this production, Angelo was played by a white man, while Isabella and Claudio were black. I don\u2019t know if the choice was deliberate, but it highlighted the entitlement Angelo feels in having control over each of their bodies. When Isabella asks \u201cTo whom should I complain?,\u201d we could not understand her more clearly. When a man wrongs you, you can appeal to the system. When the system wrongs you, what recourse do you have?<\/p>\n

Cara Rickets was a fantastic Isabella, bringing a lot of personality and humor to a character that often lacks both. Johnathan Cake (Duke), Thomas Jay Ryan (Angelo), and Leland Fowler (Claudio) helped her carry the production with strong characterizations and solid performances. But the real standouts of this production were the bit players, particularly those who doubled and tripled up. January LaVoy as the strait-laced Escala (a female Escalus) was completely unrecognizable from the Mistress Overdone who had flirted with me when I arrived. Kenneth De Abrew was always engaging to watch, whether he was playing Froth, Abhorson, or Friar Peter. And Zachary Fine absolutely stole the show \u2013 I mean, just absolutely stole it \u2013 as Elbow. Then, he did it again as Barnardine.<\/p>\n

Measure for Measure<\/a><\/em><\/em> runs through July 16.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I recently had the pleasure of seeing the production of Measure for Measure at the Polonsky Center in Brooklyn, performed by Theatre for a New Audience (TFANA). It was a good production; I would even say very good. It didn\u2019t come close to the two other productions I saw in the same space: Pericles and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76,129,35,3,20,39],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6164","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-measure-for-measure","category-president-trump","category-review","category-shakespeare","category-social-justice","category-theatre"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shakespeareteacher.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6164","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shakespeareteacher.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shakespeareteacher.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shakespeareteacher.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shakespeareteacher.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6164"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.shakespeareteacher.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6164\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6168,"href":"https:\/\/www.shakespeareteacher.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6164\/revisions\/6168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shakespeareteacher.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shakespeareteacher.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shakespeareteacher.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}