XDA

Went to the second to last performance of Measure for Measure at the Stage Theater in Denver with daughter Alex. The new director of the whole theater complex, Kent Thompson, directed the play and did a good job, although I had not seen it before (or read it even in college). Mr. Thompson is supposedly from Richmond, VA and about my age so it is inconceivable to me that we do not have mutual friends. Diomedes was there with many of the women in his life. It's a good (but not a great) play. Written and first performed in 1603, it's between Hamlet and Lear in the chronology of Shakespeare's plays, the last of the comedies in the Italian style (but set in Vienna). I see it as a bridge, with a lot of the formulae from earlier plays and precursors of better ones to follow. There is the clown constable who speaks so poorly as to nearly always say the opposite of what he really means (like Dogberry in Much Ado About Nothing). There is the mistaken identity so that the actual identity is speaking truth, but only we know it, as when the Duke, disguised as a friar, says 'I love the Duke as if he were myself' (as in Love's Labor Lost and Twelfth Night). And there is the return from the presumed dead with forgiveness all around (as opposed to the rigid revenge in Hamlet and Macbeth--my favorite) as in As You Like It, The Winter's Tale and The Tempest.

There were times when I lost the thread and couldn't follow what was said for a second or two. Other times I heard and understood every word (Shakespeare wrote in modern English after all) but had no idea what was being said. Still I got all the details of what was going on if I didn't get all the puns. Kinda of a weird play. What, actually, is the Duke doing? Is it a journey for enlightenment among his people or is he just playing practical jokes? Do we feel nothing but contempt for Angelo or is he to be pitied and forgiven? (I go with the former, but I know there's a layer in there which supports the latter). This version was set in late 19th C. Vienna (Klimpt paintings provided the inspiration for the decor), and the guards carried early Steyrs in holsters and probably M95 Mannlichers over their shoulders (it was dark in there) which I appreciated as the right details in arms, as they are Austrian and from the period portrayed.

The play is indeed the thing. It was pretty darn funny and, in retrospect, thought provoking.