Theatre in Review: Measure for Measure (Shakespeare in the Park)

	Danai Gurira and Michael Hayden. PHoto: Joan Marcus

Funny thing about Measure for Measure; for decades -- centuries, even-- nobody wanted to deal with it, regarding its plot as both preposterous and distasteful. In the last couple of decades, however, it has acquired a certain modernity. In truth, with a cast of characters that ranges from dissolute pleasure-seekers to hysterical Puritans and a plot that turns on a brazen act of sexual harassment, it now seems as up-to-date as the last plea bargain from Dominique Strauss-Kahn.

There are early signs at the Delacorte that the director of Measure for Measure, David Esbjornson, is out to give us a wild and wicked good time. It opens with devils dressed in black crawling around the stage, haunting the nightmares of Vincentio, the Duke of Vienna. Tormented by anxieties that are never really articulated, the Duke slips away from his office, disguising himself as a friar and leaving his friend Angelo in charge.

This is where the trouble sets in. Angelo, maddened by lust for the young novice Isabella, will all but rape the poor young woman before trying to blackmail her into giving herself to save her brother, Claudio, from the executioner. (Claudio is under arrest for having impregnated his girlfriend; it's part of a moral crackdown that includes shutting down all the bawdy houses.) If ever an actor was ill-equipped to convincingly undergo a Mr. Hyde-like transformation, steeping himself in moral disgust, Michael Hayden - a fine actor in many situations - is the one. His boyish good looks, affable manner, and easy way with the verse all militate against him here. He does his best - even resorting to lowering his voice to show how degraded he has become - but he isn't believable for a second.

As Isabella, Danai Gurirastruggles with a role that has proved a tough nut for many a young actress to crack. To modern eyes, I suspect, Isabella's flat-out refusal to at least lead Angelo on, in order to save her brother, makes her seem like a pretty chilly number. Can't she be at least a little uneasy about her decision? It doesn't help that Gurira doesn't really indicate much of an inner struggle -- her conscience seems perfectly clear, thank you -- and that her vocal delivery often verges on the strident. (Of course, like Helena in All's Well That Ends Well, she's perfectly willing to take part in another midnight swap of bed partners, as long as she can hold onto her virginity. Apparently, even the most ardent virtue has its limits.)

Without a strong, volatile conflict between Angelo and Isabella, there's not much of a play. Also, after that lurid opening with the devils, Esbjornson's direction becomes much more prosaic, allowing the company to settle into a stop-and-start rhythm that prevents the story from building effectively. This is surely the longest, slowest Measure for Measure of the five or six productions I've seen.

Fortunately, many moments of pleasure are dispensed by a wily team of supporting players, including John Cullum and Dakin Matthews as civil servants caught up in the intrigue swirling around them; Annie Parisse, looking sensational, as Angelo's cast-off lover; Tonya Pinkins as Mistress Overdone, the queen of the bawds; and Carson Elrod as Pompey, the tapster who, in the play's sequence of blackest comedy, gets on-the-job training as an executioner. As Vincentio, who drives the plot along from the sidelines, Lorenzo Pisoni speaks the verse well, but lacks a certain gravitas. And as Lucio, the loudmouth who proves to be a permanent thorn in Vincentio's side, Reg Rogers more or less repeats the performance he is giving in All's Well That Ends Well.

As is the case with All's Well, the production depends on Scott Pask's two-level gallery setting, here dressed differently, and Peter Kaczorowski's subtle, exquisitely wrought lighting. Elizabeth Hope Clancy's costumes dress the men in a kind of Renaissance-meets-Marc Jacobs concept; Parisse gets a pretty sensational blue velvet ensemble that makes you think Angelo is nuts for not preferring her to Isabella. As always in the park, the work of Acme Sound Partners is tip-top.

Esbjornson's staging is never less than respectable, but, to make this play sparkle, it needs special handling from a director willing to tease out its multiple ironies, its dark humor and its buried argument for a rational, common-sense approach to matters of the heart and sexual appetite. This production gets the job done, but too much of the time you're watching people at work.--David Barbour