| It's lively and funny, but the play is still odd and perhaps shouldn't be so lively and funny. The Vienna here is a not so singularly debauched place. I mean: when did bondage and sadomasochism become signifiers for corruption and the collapse of the moral order? In any case, the three central performances are quite fine--it's especially nice to see Jonathan Cake, a terrific Shakespearean actor, again--and the production mostly bounds along. As written, the ending is impossible and, yes, a problem. Maybe it's the romance of memory, but I remember the plight of Isabella, as played by Meryl Streep in 1975, being shocking, a woman uniquely debased and humiliated by her fate. These days, when the debasement of women is presidential policy--speaking of the collapse of moral order--Isabella's experience is practically quaint. But it shouldn't be, and insofar as clownishness trumps outrage--then as now--this production lets her down. |
