'Measure for Measure' (Acting Company)

“This season’s repertory continues our recent practice of pairing plays that use the past to address pressing social and political issues of the present.”  That’s what the note from The Acting Company stated in the program for its rotating rep in New York City this summer, which consists of William Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure and a new adaptation of Richard Wright’s novel Native Son for the stage.  I’ve just seen Measure (Native Son follows in a week) and the program note, composed by artistic director Ian Belknap, executive director Elisa Spencer-Kaplan, and founder Margot Harley, goes on to specify that the 1604 (some sources say 1603) Measure “presents an authoritative government, wrongful imprisonment, and sexual assault,” declaring that these are “all relevant in 2019.”

The Acting Company’s 47th season, presenting its first rotating repertory for an entire summer in New York City, began here on 14 July 2019 with previews for Measure at The Duke on 42nd Street (229 W. 42nd  Street) and continued with the production’s opening on 28 July.  My theater companion Diana and I saw the show at the 8 p.m. performance on Friday, 9 August; performances are scheduled to end on 24 August. 

Readers of Rick On Theater will remember that on 20 July, I ran a post on “Shakespeare, Forgiveness, and Measure for Measure” (https://rickontheater.blogspot.com/2019/07/shakespeare-forgiveness-and-measure-for.html) by my friend and frequent ROT contributor, Kirk Woodward.  (He gives quite a nice, brief synopsis of this play about a woman who is sexually pressured by a man in power, by the way, and I think I’ll let ROTters refer to it rather than recap it here.)  Kirk’s article is based on his having seen a recent production of Measure and, having reflected on what he’d seen, conceived an analysis of it and, by extension, all of Shakespeare’s “output,” as he phrased it.

For this reason, I wish Kirk had seen this Measure for Measure with me.  Janet Zarish, the Acting Company production’s director, cut the script down to an hour and 35 minutes—no adapter, dramaturg, or literary manager is credited—turning it into a no-intermission one-act.  (Measure for Measure probably runs about three hours uncut.  That would mean Zarish’s production omits almost as much text as it puts on stage.)   I don’t know Measure for Measure that well and Kirk might have been able to tell me what got cut.

My impression is that Zarish cut out everything that isn’t about Isabella, Claudio, and Angelo and can’t be made to comment on 2019 society (that is, Brett Kavanaugh/Harvey Weinstein, #MeToo, authoritarianism, unjust incarceration).  Indeed, an on-line ad for the company’s presentation (which seems to have been taken down) even asserted: “In what could be a [now-Supreme Court Associate Justice Brett] Kavanaugh biopic, Acting Co.’s play speaks on impossible moral choices.” 

(After summarizing the plot of the Acting Company adaptation, David Barbour of Lighting&Sound America reported:

There's rather more to Measure for Measure, but you wouldn't necessarily know it from Janet Zarish's stripped-down production . . . .  This is the Reader's Digest version . . . focus[ing] on the main narrative line while severely reducing or eliminating the bawds, pimps, whores, and unrepentant criminals who form the play's substructure, becoming solely the story of a lady in distress, surrounded by manipulative men.) 

If readers remember my recent posting of some archival reports on Shakespearean mountings (“Two Pairs of Shakespeares from the Archives,” 4 August), I spoke of “simile” and “metaphor” productions of classic plays.  (The reference is to Robert Brustein’s essay “Reworking the Classics: Homage or Ego Trip?” which I posted on ROT on 10 March 2011; I also wrote a commentary on the essay for the blog, “Similes, Metaphors—And The Stage,” 18 September 2009.)  Zarish’s Measure for Measure is a sort of wan simile staging—not really updated or transported to another time or place—it still takes place in Vienna—but dressed (by Jessica Wegener Shay) circa 2019. 

Little else is adjusted, though one character smokes an e-cigarette.  While the costumes are modern dress (though the nuns still wear habits), Neil Patel’s set (which also serves Native Son) is period-less (and characterless, resembling a concrete basement or fire stairs).  The cast is racially and ethnically diverse in the color-blind vein, making the look of the play less Renaissance Vienna (or even modern-day Vienna, I suspect), but more present-day urban U.S. 

Just to make sure we don’t miss that this 400-year-old tale of sexual coercion by the power of authority is to be read as a reflection of contemporary society, Zarish has the play open with the sounds of newscasters reporting the headlines of income disparity, hate crimes, climate change, and gun violence (the sound design is by Fabian Obispo).  Later, these same voices report on the fate of Claudio (Lorenzo Jackson), the brother of the novitiate Isabella (Rebekah Brockman).  Trying to free Claudio from Angelo’s (Sam Lilja) verdict, she goes to him and he offers to exchange Claudio’s life for Isabella’s chastity—the classic—if higher-stakes—coercive bargain of the sexual predator, so the reappearance of the news broadcasts is meant to link the real-life 21st-century stories with Shakespeare’s four-century-old fiction. 

There are other bald-faced reminders, too.  The revelation of Angelo’s hypocrisy and vile behavior, for example, is conducted like a Congressional hearing or, more to the point, a Senatorial confirmation with large tables and witnesses seated behind microphones.  I wonder how many in the audience would have missed the connections had Zarish not hit us over the head with them?  I, for one, would have liked the chance to see if I’d have sussed out the links on my own.

None of The Acting Company’s “reworking” of Measure for Measure did anything to resolve the pervasive problem of the play, the issue that Kirk pointed out in “Shakespeare Forgiveness”: “its characters are all to one extent or another morally ambiguous, and because although ostensibly a comedy, none of its characters are very happy when it ends.”  Whatever present-day social and political questions Zarish and The Acting Company want to address in their rotating rep, they don’t manage to clean up the fundamental complication that no one in Measure for Measure is a moral exemplar.  They’re all not only flawed, but deeply flawed—and the Acting Company Production does no more than speed through this aspect of Shakespeare’s play.  It’s as if Zarish figured that if they fly past the problem without really touching it, no one will notice the difficulty.

Diana thought the production was good, but I found it second-rate, about the level of an undergrad college production.  The actors over-enunciated words—because they were speaking “Shakespeare”!  They moved and gestured awkwardly and without motivation or emotional/psychological content.  There were lots of fluttering and wringing hands.  It all seemed to me as if none of them really knew what they were saying or doing, just going through the (directed) motions.  It felt as if everyone was trying too hard to make it all seem “natural” and “earnest,” but as a result making it all look studied and fake.  I was in the front row of the house and kept wanting to whisper Hamlet’s advice to the players to them:

Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue: but if you mouth it, as many of your players do, I had as lief the town-crier spoke my lines.  Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand, thus, but use all gently . . . .

This was not the Acting Company I’ve seen before (including as recently as 2015; see my report on Desire, 26 September 2015).  After I described some of this to him, Kirk dubbed the cast “the Overacting Company.”

(Someone might have wondered why the quality of this work should be so different from what I remember from my last Acting Company experience.  I think The Acting Company, whose current troupe is made up of recent acting-school grads with a majority drawn from Juilliard, works a little like a sports team.  They assemble a troupe of good to great actors over a few seasons, the actors gain a lot of practical experience, and then they move on and the company’s left with a core of newbies and they have to start rebuilding again.  It was four years ago that I last saw them, and if the turn-over’s like that, that may be what happened.)

There was one particular maneuver that stood out among the actors’ movements that I found awkward, for example.  I mentioned that one character, Lucio (Anthony Bowden), smoked an e-cig and he didn’t look natural—like someone from my day smoking a regular cigarette on stage who’d never smoked in real life.  Bowden looked both uncomfortable and clumsy.  Now, maybe the nature of the device makes a vaper look that way—I’ve never observed e-cig smokers closely, so I don’t know.  (Maybe it’s like smoking a Russian papirosa.  They look like ordinary cigarettes, but they aren’t and the smoker’s forced to hold the papirosa differently so that it looks strange to someone unfamiliar with the routine.)   But Lucio, who’s labeled in the character list in the play text as “a fantastic,” which in Elizabethan times meant an absurd, fanciful, whimsical, or eccentric person, vaped in a couple of scenes and it always looked faked.

Lucio, a loudmouth who’s all up in other people’s business and isn’t above spreading a little fake news about everyone to everyone else if it makes him think he’s impressing them with his insider access (think Anthony “The Mooch” Scaramucci without the charm), is the only male character who doesn’t wear a suit (other than Henry Jenkinson’s Provost, who wears a uniform, and Claudio, who spends most of the play in an orange jumpsuit).  Shay’s got him up like a 1980s Eye-talian lounge lizard with a loud silk shirt open to his navel and gold chains mingling with his chest hairs.  Otherwise, all the men wear the politician’s work uniform: a blue suit (including a couple of double-breasteds). 

I was bemused to see Keshav Moodliar, after he’d doffed his final disguise and returned to his blue ducal suit (say that five times fast!), that he was sockless in his black, Italianate, leather slip-ons—going commando in the pedal region, I guess.  It struck me as a little too casual-Friday in the circumstances.  But then, I’m just an old fuddy-duddy.

The costumes Shay devised for the woman are more varied, from hooker-lite for Laura Gragtmans’s Mistress Overdone (hot pants and a tight top) to a demure pale-blue shift (with about a hundred little buttons down the front) for Isabella, her hair covered by a plain, white veil.  (As Francesca, the nun who accompanies novice Isabella when Lucio comes to the nunnery to tell her of her brother’s imprisonment, Katherine Renee Turner wears a full habit.)

I’ve been wondering why there’s been so little press coverage of this rep.  As of 13 August, Native Son’s gotten eight reviews and Measure for Measure, only six.  (The New York Times has reviewed only Native Son—and that was eight days after opening.)  The Acting Company isn’t an insignificant company, and a rotating rep should have been worthy of some attention.  Now I wonder if the reviewers came and either decided not to write reviews after seeing the productions or their editors spiked the reviews as unworthy of the space.  The Times (“the newspaper of record”) is usually very conscientious about reviewing almost all Broadway and Off-Broadway productions; it even covers some Off-Off-Broadway shows.  It’s not like the summer has a slew of openings to cover, after all!

With respect to the critical coverage of Measure for Measure, ROTters know that I usually take a look at Show-Score’s surveys of published reviews and report their tally.  Well, as of 28 July, the site’s no longer scoring those reviews, though they continue to collect them.  (I’ve quoted Show-Score’s press release with the CEO’s rationale for the change below this report with a link to the document.)  Viewer reviews will be rated and the show’s average score will be calculated from those assessments, but there will no longer be number ratings for the published notices or an average score for them. 

As for the critical response to The Acting Company’s Measure for Measure, I’ll be summarizing all six of the reviews, including two Show-Score didn’t include in its collection.  (Readers should note that the notices have been tricking in over a period of over two weeks and more may be published after this report has been posted.)

In the New Yorker, Maya Phillips, reporting, “It’s no surprise that, since the inception of the #MeToo movement, ‘Measure for Measure,’ Shakespeare’s problem play about virtue and a man’s attempt to use his influence to coerce a woman into having sex with him, is seeing more productions,” asserted that “The Acting Company’s current staging makes small but notable gestures toward the play’s prescience.”  She called Angelo a “Weinstein-esque villain” and found that, “as played by Sam Lilja, [he] lacks the baseness and sleaze to counter Rebekah Brockman’s wholeheartedly earnest and virtuous Isabella.”  As for the overall production, Phillips deemed “Janet Zarish’s direction admirably holds its characters accountable for their self-righteousness and moral hypocrisies, but the comic notes fall by the wayside.”

On TheaterMania, Pete Hempstead declared, “There’s no arguing that Measure speaks directly to the #MeToo movement, and with the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation hearings almost a year in the past, it’s no surprise that the Acting Company has chosen to keep the memory fresh and stage its own Measure, which it has trimmed to a sometimes insightful, mostly workaday 95 minutes.”  Directed with “less harrowing staging” than The Acting Company’s Native Son, thought Hempstead, the “modern-day take on Measure for Measure makes its agenda obvious from the beginning with speakers blaring headlines about hate crimes, poverty, global warming, and gun violence.”  The TM reviewer added, “What you’re going to see (the play seems to shout) is going to be relevant, damn it.”  Hempstead reported that while both plays in the rep provide “nothing groundbreaking in the way of theatricality,” together the “pairing of  Measure for Measure and Native Son does call attention to cavalier attitudes toward black and female bodies and to the white patriarchy that seeks to control them.”

Lighting&Sound America’s Barbour noted that another Shakespeare problem play, Coriolanus (New York Shakespeare Festival at the Delacorte Theatre in Central Park), is on the New York City boards with The Acting Company’s Measure for Measure, and reported that in each case, the director tackles the work’s imperfections head-on, with differing degrees of success.”  The abridgement, Barbour found, “benefits from a swift pace and a clear dramatic line, building to a final confrontation that satisfyingly strikes a blow at the Viennese patriarchy.”  He added, however, that it “scrubs the play of its considerable humor and tames its unruliness, not to its advantage.”  The LSA reviewer’s “most grievous” complaint is that the adaptation

misreads Shakespeare’s intentions:  The play is marked by a frank, scalding appraisal of the world’s wicked ways and it makes an argument for moderation in both virtue and vice.  Indeed, the virtuous characters are almost as single-minded as the libertines they scorn.

“Zarish’s take on the play,” felt Barbour, “might work better with a more engaged cast, but everyone onstage seems to be in a rush to catch a train.”  He singled out Keshav Moodliar’s Duke for his “touch of authority and an urgent sense that lives and reputations are at risk,” but criticized “Rebekah Brockman’s surprisingly tough and opaque Isabella and Sam Lilja’s Angelo, who is more middle-manager than sexual predator.”  The cyber reviewer praised the design team for Measure but complained that the “production ends with a feminist twist that will please many in the audience, but which feels tacked on, as it violates the sense of reconciliation [another synonym for forgiveness that Kirk could add to his list] that is key to all of Shakespeare’s comedies.”  His final words of advice, therefore, were that “if you love this play, I’d hold out for the next revival.”

“The Acting Company’s new production of Measure for Measure . . . is crisp, precise and thoroughly entertaining,” declared JK Clarke on Theater Pizzazz.  Clarke added, “It certainly helps that a sizable chunk of the original script, including many beloved scenes with comic characters like Elbow and Pompey, are excised from this version,” making it at least an hour shorter.  “While it may not be an unabridged version, it is nonetheless a powerful production.”  

Zarish’s staging is “precise” and even in the final scene in which Shakespeare “leaves Isabella’s response to the Duke’s shocking proposal ambiguous,” under this director, “nothing is left to the imagination and Isabella’s profound reaction is both satisfying and logical.”  Comparing The Acting Company’s Measure for Measure with Lincoln Center Theatre’s current The Rolling Stone (by Chris Urch, through 25 August), the TP review-writer concluded that the two plays are “messages in lockstep with the times.”  

Mark Dundas Wood of TheaterScene.net thinks that Measure for Measure “seems as though it would lend itself to an adaptation crafted in light of the #MeToo movement,” but he cautioned, “To some extent, The Acting Company’s . . . version proves itself a good fit for such an approach, although there are elements of Shakespeare’s play that don’t quite conform seamlessly with what director Janet Zarish seems to be going for.”  Wood reported, “This rendition of the play makes Isabella a stronger, more self-reliant character than Shakespeare likely intended. She is not remotely frail or helpless,” finding Rebekah Brockman “emotionally disengaged” and wondering if “Brockman’s determination not to portray the character as victim . . . makes her seem so.”

Wood continued, “The production is more effective in its deconstruction of the duke’s motives.  Moodliar makes the character a smug sort, in love with his own benevolence and cleverness.”  The TS.net  reviewer found “Anthony Bowden as the rakish and smarmy Lucio . . .  one of the best things in the production” and he praised the design elements of the show. “The biggest twist of the evening comes at the denouement,” concluded Wood, “when Zarish and Brockman turn Shakespeare’s story on its ear, giving us a finish that defies traditional expectations.  While not true to the original ‘happy ending,’ this surprise will prove satisfying to many—perhaps most—2019 playgoers.”

On CurtainUp, Gregory Wilson explained that he’s “always enjoyed watching plays performed in rotating repertory, as even a familiar work can be seen in a new light when it's placed in proximity (and dialogue) with another.”  The Acting Company, Wilson asserted, “has tried to focus on the central themes of two well-known plays—Richard Wright's Native Son and Shakespeare's Measure for Measure—and render them more powerful through juxtaposition” in a “partially successful” experiment.  He cautioned that “the danger of this approach is that it can minimize the complexity of the works in question, and I'm afraid that happens here too.  Ultimately, Wright and Shakespeare are larger than these interpretations give them credit for.”  Wilson reported, “Both productions zoom in on what they view as the critical aspects of each play,” continuing, “The virtue of this approach, of course, is focus.” 

“The acting and directing are excellent,” the CU writer felt, but “the quality of the performances contributes to a larger problem—because it's hard not to feel like there are multiple missed opportunities.”  He explained: “Measure for Measure, after all, is about many things besides misogyny.  Religious dogma overriding common sense, love vs. law, and deep-seated hypocrisy are all just as much part of the play's thematic fabric, and stripping all of them out to go after the production's one theme flattens Shakespeare's work considerably.” 

Still, Wilson affirms that he likes “the idea of juxtaposing” the two plays, which “are [b]oth solid, well-directed and acted productions.”  Wilson concluded with a caveat:

But if it's important not to lose the forest for the trees, it's also important to avoid cutting down most of the trees for the sake of what one thinks is the forest.  Richard Wright and William Shakespeare are justly praised for their depth and breadth of thought; I wish that in the zeal to focus them on single concepts, these productions didn't reduce their works as much as they do.

I'm curious, if a little trepidatious, about how Native Son will turn out.  It's close to contemporary (1930s, assuming adapter Nambi E. Kelley didn’t up-date it), so maybe the company—it’s essentially the same cast as Measure for Measure—will be more comfortable. Cross fingers!

[For ROTters who are curious about why Show-Score has changed its review-rating policy, here’s the explanation from Tom Melcher, the site’s founder and CEO.  Show-Score issued a press release, “SHOW-SCORE ANNOUNCES CHANGES TO SCORING APPROACH: MEMBER REVIEWS WILL BE SHOWCASED; CRITIC REVIEWS WILL BE DISPLAYED BUT WILL NO LONGER BE SCORED”:

June 28, 2019 (New York, NY): Show-Score.com, the leading online community for theater fans, today announced a change to how it scores and displays reviews from members and professional critics. In an email to Show-Score’s 277,000 members (full text pasted below), Show-Score’s Founder Tom Melcher explained that Show-Score members have now written 400,000 reviews of New York City theater on the site. To further this strong community, Show-Score will now be showcasing these member reviews even further, allowing members to learn more about the reviewer and to find theater fans who share their taste.

At the same time, Show-Score will continue to aggregate the major professional critics with a brief review summary and a link out to their full review. The site will no longer be scoring and excerpting critic reviews itself, nor posting critic scores.

As Melcher said in an email, “We still want our members to access a range of professional critical opinion because we believe that critics provide useful context and commentary, and represent a spectrum of taste in theater. We would much prefer that the critics score their own reviews, since they are writing their response to the work they have experienced. However, while some critics have been sending us their scores and excerpts, we have not been able to get complete buy-in, which is necessary for a uniform scoring system to work.”

[The release includes the text of Melcher’s e-mail to Show-Score members, as it says above; both the press release and the accompanying e-mail text are available at https://www.show-score.com/pdf/Show-Score_Announces_Changes_to_Scoring_Approach.pdf.]