RSC Measure for Measure 2019

The publicity material for Greg Doran’s current RSC Measure for Measure billed it as “Shakespeare’s #MeToo play”, and the production quietly but insistently drew parallels with twenty-first century concerns. The final scene, as Isabella and Mariana accused Angelo, only to be dismissed as “poor, informal women” and liars, had a potency fueled by recent testimonies of women speaking out against men of alleged “worth and credit”, but here the women’s victory was ambiguous at best. Mariana played high to win the dubious prize of Angelo (though at least Sandy Grierson’s Angelo looked as if he considered life with Mariana a favorable alternative to the death penalty), and Isabella fell victim to another form of coercion—more benign than Angelo’s, but no less controlling. Excellent performances across the whole cast and an Edwardian setting that evoked the world of Schnitzler and Expressionism, peopled with dominating men and silenced women, cohered in a powerful production that challenged issues of religious commitment, gender roles and identity, but gave no easy answers.

The company’s recent policy of casting more women in major roles—Escalus, the Provost—and smaller ones such as Angelo’s secretary (Hannah Azuonye also doubled as the singer of “Take O take those lips away”), a court stenographer, and an onstage presence for Kate Keepdown, pushing a pram and hollering for deadbeat-dad Lucio, contributed to a reimagined Belle Epoque Vienna in which women were more visible and varied. Isabella’s attack on “man, proud man, dressed in a little brief authority” became more specific to Angelo,…