Measure for Measure (1979)

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   Siskoid

   Shakespeare's Measure for Measure is a dark comedy that ends in several marriages, as the genre requires, but none of them necessarily bound with love. The Bard is still in the experimental phase he began with Troilus & Cressida, where he is less interested in following convention or, in fact, in revealing his characters to his audience (his greatest strength as a dramatist, surely). The story takes place in a very Italian Vienna, where the reigning Duke (Kenneth Colley who wags his head and finger entirely too much), finding the town out of control sex-wise, has left a more Puritan nobleman (Tim Piggot-Smith with a spare but strong performance) in charge to set things right, but in comedy fashion, he returns in disguise to see how things work out, and amuses himself with convoluted plots to save a man sentenced to death for impregnating a woman out of wedlock and exposing his proxy's hypocrisy for offering the man's life back if only his saintly sister (Kate Nelligan, the best part of this adaptation) would sleep with him. The BBC production of the play tries to explain some of the stranger motivations, but doesn't get to the heart of the "problem play" in any significant fashion, though I don't know what they could have done different. I've in fact found no critical commentary on the play that I've found convincing and that could have served to illuminate Shakespeare's meaning, but it works as a clash between a Puritanical state's rule of law and human nature. If the Duke's reinterpretation of the title's dictum is more in line with nature than it is law, that isn't clear. It's a good play that doesn't surrender itself immediately, but its ambiguities are perhaps stronger in the reading than in the staging. 6 years 9 months ago

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