MEASURE FOR MEASURE is often called one of the Bard’s “problem plays.” I can report that in the hands of a cast of longtime Antananarivo and under the able directions of Shakespeare experts Armin Shimerman and Elizabeth Swain, there’s no problem here. It’s still in previews, but this cast is already on point. The whole play races along, and the underlying themes of sexual politics, corruption, and misuse of power could not be more timely. Ramon de Ocampo plays both the zealous (in more than one sense of the word) Angelo, as well as Claudio, the man Angelo has sentenced to die for violating Vienna’s newly restored laws on morality. The scene in which he proposes that Claudio could be saved...if his sister Isabella, a novitiate at a convent, agrees to sleep with him, was a masterpiece of chilling menace.
Bo Foxworth stole every scene as the outrageous Lucio, coming on as Eddie Izzard in THE REVENGERS TRAGEDY, with eyeliner, black nails, and so much attitude. Paul Culos, who was brilliant in Antaeus’ LES LIASIONS DANGEREUSES, shines as the Duke, ferreting out what’s wrong in his dukedom, and Carolyn Ratteray was a steadfast Isabella. Shimerman and Swain did a fantastic job with this complicated work.
I’d seen MFM filmed, but never staged. Very impressed.
Laura |
