Measure for Measure at the 2007 Idaho Shakespeare Festival, or, as the Director Likes It

Hence shall we see If power change purpose, what our seemers be. (1) Vincentio, the Duke of Vienna, enters the stage. Casually but snappily dressed in tailored slacks and silken shirt, his shirt buttoned only to mid-chest exposing just a bit of manly hair, he is almost ready for his journey. As he finishes his dressing, he bids farewell to Escalus and Angelo--pulling up to button his pants--and exits as if ready for a gentleman's wanderjahr, masked by stylish sunglasses. For someone like me familiar with Shakespeare's Measure for Measure, the scene establishes a Duke ready to abdicate his authority to Angelo--an authority symbolized by the medallion that frames his manly chest. For someone in the audience who is not familiar with the play, common considering that Measure is not one of Shakespeare's widely known plays, the entrance immediately places the play in a contemporary setting--Shakespeare in today's world. Such contemporary perspectives have been an integral part of the productions directed by Risa Brainin at the Idaho Shakespeare Festival (ISF). (2) The Festival, located in Boise, Idaho, is now in its thirty-second year, the eleventh in its current amphitheater. The amphitheater is the most wide-open summer festival stage I have ever attended and I have been to Stratford, Ontario; Ashland, Oregon; and Cedar City, Utah. The theater has no walls, the light posts are fully visible, and although the stage itself creates a partial wall, from which the actors exit and enter, and perform in front of and behind, one sees through the wide center of the stage to the surrounding hills. Only the auditorium-style seating as it slants away from the stage establishes any enclosing structure. All of this creates a very flexible atmosphere for outdoor festival theater and allows for a variety of interpretations of Shakespeare's plays. Measure for Measure is the third production for ISF Brainin has directed, and the third to use contemporary imagery. (3) Three years previous she directed an impressive Julius Caesar and the next year an even more effective King Lear. In Julius Caesar, for example, during the battle scenes late in the play, the actors surrounding Brutus carried laptop computers, connecting online to the battle and their warriors. By giving Measure a twenty-first-century setting, she related it to the audience and contributed to the audience's repeated delight in many of the play's jokes, puns, and eroticisms. However, in Measure for Measure, Brainin went beyond mere imagery to develop a powerful portrait of the intrusiveness and abuses of authoritarian control by describing the pervasiveness of such control in modern society. Such modernization, if it is successful, can make Shakespeare up-to-date for an audience, but if it clashes too much with Shakespeare's English, or even worse if it trivializes the play, it may reflect only a director's desire to impose her own ideas and values on the play. The moral ambiguity of Shakespeare's Measure for Measure can be exemplified in the characters of Escalus and the Provost. Both exercise authority and both are instruments of authority. Both also have personal knowledge of the events, for instance, surrounding the execution of Claudio. Most importantly, both express their distaste for Angelo's decision to execute Claudio. Escalus says, This gentleman, / Whom I would save (2.1.6-7) and the Provost hopes there will be some pardon or reprieve/ For the most gentle Claudio (4.2.69-70). But both have no effect upon the execution of Angelo's power. Escalus (Steve Tague) was brilliantly befuddled and inept throughout ISF's performance and the perplexed Provost (Joe Conley Golden) did nothing until the Duke revealed himself and directly countermanded Angelo's order, but even then the Provost was merely following the Duke's higher command. Neither Escalus nor the Provost lets his moral misgivings interfere with the absolutism of authority. …

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