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| re: Another Show Most People Like, But I Didn't: Desperate Measures | |
| Last Edit: lordofspeech 06:21 pm EDT 06/24/18 | |
| Posted by: lordofspeech 06:17 pm EDT 06/24/18 | |
| In reply to: Another Show Most People Like, But I Didn't: Desperate Measures - stan 12:59 pm EDT 06/24/18 | |
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| SPOILERS IN RESPONSE: If you like or appreciate “Measure for Measure,” I think “Desperate Measures” will be worthwhile. But, I concur that there were opportunities missed. The most delicious element for me is that the play’s text is all (nearly all?) in iambic pentameter, or seems to be, and RHYMING COUPLETS!!!! Quite a feat, and, as anyone familiar with those rhyming Moliere translations-into-English, SO MUCH FUN to listen to. There are problems. Neither the director nor the actress was able to really figure out the Isabella figure (though the girl has an icily expert soprano). Is she a cold-fish-automaton-comic figure? That seems to be where they left her. Although she’s admittedly a difficult character; there’s not much here. She is beautiful and sings beautifully. The Angelo figure is cast considerably older than Isabella and is written as a hyper-farcical German facist in the western town. Though the actor is beyond adept, excellent in fact, at the schticks required, this whole idea undermines the danger/sexuality/grit of the storyline. So, though we recognize the signals of the shtick, there’re no real stakes and no real funny. The Claudio is very well-trained, a good singer, and athletic (and, like Isabella, physically attractive). But he’s played hyper-dumb. Again, a layer of shtick that springs from nowhere and illuminates nothing. In fact, it undermines the central crisis of the play and the sweet song he has about how valuable life is. The Duke figure plays it all straight and therefore is the most fun and the most charming. Sings good. Looks good. And playing the situation for real gives us real comedy. The priest-figure is written as all shtick. The other woman’s role, the bawd, may be interesting, but this actress pushes so hard to comment on her character and beg for laughs that it’s hard to watch. She has the most golden-age-fun song, a kind of « anything you can do » duet with Claudio. Although the whole thing is directed to seem focussed and professional, it doesn’t serve the text or the storyline to camp and shtick it up. It may pass for a comedy about sexual repression, but it’s neither sexy nor funny. I hadn’t meant to say bad things. I’m glad I went. I learned some things about what might be important for making « Measure for Measure » work. |
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| re: Another Show Most People Like, But I Didn't: Desperate Measures | |
| Last Edit: AlanScott 07:01 pm EDT 06/24/18 | |
| Posted by: AlanScott 06:57 pm EDT 06/24/18 | |
| In reply to: re: Another Show Most People Like, But I Didn't: Desperate Measures - lordofspeech 06:17 pm EDT 06/24/18 | |
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| Re Measure for Measure: I think it's pretty average among Shakespeare's play in terms of both percentage of rhyming couplets and in terms of percentage of prose as opposed to verse. It certainly isn't mostly in rhyming couplets, and while there's plenty of verse, there are also some major sections that are largely or entirely in prose. The Duke has one longish monologue — the end of III, ii — that's all rhyming couplets, but otherwise there are few places where there are rhyming couplets, except at the end of most but by no means all scenes (with a couple of them being rhyming quatrains). | |
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| re: Another Show Most People Like, But I Didn't: Desperate Measures | |
| Posted by: lordofspeech 08:23 pm EDT 06/24/18 | |
| In reply to: re: Another Show Most People Like, But I Didn't: Desperate Measures - AlanScott 06:57 pm EDT 06/24/18 | |
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| Sorry, Alan Scott. I wasn’t clear. You are correct; there are few if any rhymes in Shakespeare’s original, « Measure for Measure, » and the verse is very dense if I remember, with a lot of feminine endings. No. What I meant was that the script for « Desperate Measures, » this new musical about a novitiate, a bawd, a sheriff, and gunslingers in the Old Western US...this musical’s script (libretto, shall I say) is, charmingly, in iambic pentameter with most if not all of it in rhyming couplets. Really. And really fun. |
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| re: Another Show Most People Like, But I Didn't: Desperate Measures | |
| Posted by: AlanScott 09:10 pm EDT 06/24/18 | |
| In reply to: re: Another Show Most People Like, But I Didn't: Desperate Measures - lordofspeech 08:23 pm EDT 06/24/18 | |
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| Sorry that I misunderstood you. I wondered but you spoke of "the play's text." Anyway, I haven't seen the musical, but it is interesting to hear that the book is mostly in iambs and rhyming couplets. Measure for Measure is a Shakespeare that I especially love, and I fear that I would hold any musical version to an impossibly high standard. It does sound as if this one takes such an essentially free approach, probably in part to make clear that it is not intended to be taken as any sort of straightforward musical version, so perhaps I'd put aside my love for the play and enjoy the musical on its own terms, as I'm sure they hope folks will do. But sometimes I'm pretty closed-minded about these things. :) |
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| re: Another Show Most People Like, But I Didn't: Desperate Measures | |
| Posted by: NewtonUK 07:31 am EDT 06/25/18 | |
| In reply to: re: Another Show Most People Like, But I Didn't: Desperate Measures - AlanScott 09:10 pm EDT 06/24/18 | |
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| OK - its me saying this - saw this show a the York, hearing so much good about it, and found it depressing witless and charm free. It focuses all of its energy on the parts of the story that are most dicey, like the 'bed trick'. I'm a big Shakespeare fan - have seen many MFM productions, and directed two, This musical is a 'desperate measure' indeed. All good grace to those who seem to love it. I was at a loss to understand why as was my companion at the show. And the underpopulated cast doesnt help anything except the bottom line. IMHO. |
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