Measure for Measure-TFANA
Opening Night: June 25, 2017
Closing: July 16, 2017
Theater: Polonsky Shakespeare Center
Simon Godwin, Associate Director, London’s National Theatre, stages Measure for Measure, William Shakespeare’s dark comedy about justice, faith, power, sex, and family. Jonathan Cake, Cara Ricketts, and Thomas Jay Ryan lead a company of 12 actors in a high-stakes conflict of clashing ideologies–a diverse world in which incompatible values collide. Godwin sets this urgent play in a modern city becoming increasingly authoritarian. The production engages audiences directly with the play’s clashing arguments. Audience members will enter the theatre through hallways transformed into Mistress Overdone’s brothel; some will visit a café where Mariana sings; and twelve will sit around the stage as a jury. Please note: Measure for Measure contains sexually explicit content which some may find inappropriate for those under 16 years of age.
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June 25, 2017
It’s hard to know what to do about “Measure for Measure,” the kind of play for which Shakespeare’s “problem plays” were named. It includes some of the finest moral argumentation in the canon: thrilling back-and-forths between well-matched antagonists with a great deal on the line. It also includes inane subplots, fake friars, punster tapsters and a tiresome denouement. That trade-off is never easy to negotiate, and the version of “Measure for Measure” that opened on Sunday at Theater for a New Audience, in a production by the British wunderkind director Simon Godwin, leans too heavily on the supposedly funny elements. Leaning on funny elements is almost always counterproductive.
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