Measure For Measure at the Young Vic starring Romola Garai: Theatre review
ALTHOUGH considered one of the Bard’s “problem plays”, Joe Hill-Gibbins’ production aims straight for the comic jugular.
Romola Garai as novitiate nun Isabella in Measure For Measure
Novitiate nun Isabella goes to court to beg the Duke’s stand-in Angelo to spare her brother Claudio (condemned to death for “fornication” only to find herself sexually compromised by Angelo).
SHORT MEASURE: Romola Garai as Isabella
All the subtle mechanisms of the play’s morally complex plot are jettisoned and replaced with silly theatrics, such as mountains of inflatable sex dolls and tiresome video feeds.
Pity poor Romola Garai as Isabella, whose essential decency and seriousness is undermined by the fact she has to negotiate an ocean of rubbery mannequins complete with crude sexual organs.
Alastair Muir
Isabella is one of Shakespeare’s most intriguing heroines and in her capacity for intellectual argument she comes across as a celibate cousin to The Merchant Of Venice’s Portia.
As Duke Vincentio, Zubin Varla gives a most peculiar reading of a character who abandons his dukedom temporarily to go walkabout disguised as a monk.
Measure For Measure : A morally complex plot replaced with silly theatrics
I still have no idea what motivates him which is one of the “problems” of the play. There are some lively patches in this version that has been severely cut to run at barely two hours including an interval. However the losses are noticeable.
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The final scene when the Duke lines up all the couples and arranges their marriages is both funny and uncomfortable as it should be. But it is a rather cheap way of dealing with a highly complex play.
MEASURE FOR MEASURE at the Young Vic, until November 14. Tickets: 020 7922 2922; youngvic.org.