BBC Measure for Measure

[Lucinda]

Hello, Martin and anyone else interested! Finally posting aout M for M.

I thought the casting was much better on this than on Troilus. Angelo in particular did a good job of a difficult part, repressed and capable of evil, yet attractive enough, with enough potential for reform for Mariana to have set her heart on him.

Isabella was good too, very pretty but rigid and prudish, so that it takes her a minute to decide to smile acceptance at the Duke in the end.

Lucio was funny, more repellent than I'd imagined him - I'd seen him as a thoughtless philanderer, occasionally good-hearted rather than an outright debauched knave - but that version was good, and I suppose Claudio found him amusing.

I liked the touch of having the baby brought on at the end - I believe other directors have done this, though is it ever explained why Claudio didn't marry
poor Juliet long before as they were engaged?

The Duke was well done, particularly when he is outraged at Lucio's gibes about him. It reminds one of how authoritarian the state was in Shakepeare's day when whipping and hanging is seen as quite just a punishmnet for slandering a monarch.

I am reminded of how poor Thomas Kyd, author of that play 'The Spanish Tragedy' that apparently influenced the writing of Hamlet (haven't read it) was discovered to have 'aesthetical literature' (planted on him by Christopher Marlowe for some reason) and was tortured so that he died a year later...

Shakespeare wrote in times where free speech wasn't on...

Pompey etc were very squalid people, as of course, they wree intended to be, I thought, here as in The Two Gentleman, if most people under sixteen had been able to understand the archaic vulgarisms,they would have had to reclassify the certificate...

I particularly liked the way that Angelo melts towards Mariana at the end, showing this by helpig her to her feet after her plea for him, etc. Rather sweet, as in the melting of Bertam in AWTEW. I do like that sort of depiction rather than 'cynical' versions.

I actually didn't notice the name of the director - was it Jonathon Miller?

Jessica

[Martin]

Again, you have the advantage over me, Jessica, and I should have watched the DVD before posting it, since I realise now how long it is since I saw it, and the casting I don't recall too well. I remember Tim Piggot-Smith was Angelo, but cannot remember the Isabella character. I'll have to see it again when it comes back.

But in the way the performance matches the mood of the play, I think you are very perceptive. The savagery of Elizabethan life is something I now see constant reminders of in the comedies. I recently read this,

. . . I would the lightning had
Burnt up those logs that you are enjoin'd to pile!
Pray, set it down and rest you: when this burns,
'Twill weep for having wearied you.

The sap hissing out of the burning wood becomes an image of the tears of someone being burnt alive. The Phoenix and the Turtle also carries the idea of death by burning. In M for M every horror is present, execution for getting a girl pregnant, and the executioner proud of his "mystery" (profession), sex in exchange for a man's life, venereal disease and the brothel system, the severed heads in the prison scene ... the threats against Lucio, whose crime is impertinence and a bit of slander. The performance doesn't gloat over the horrors, but it is careful not to hide them.

It avoids "taking sides". The moral centre slips about on stage to the puzzlement of the audience. Is Isabella a saint or a prig, is the Duke a magical fixer or a shabby schemer, is Lucio the saviour of Claudio or attempted destroyer of the Duke? The performance I thought brings out all these ambiguities.

[Lucinda]

Hello, Martin, and hopefully Candy: -

That is very true about the ambiguities, and of course, they are the negative aspects of the same characteristic, ie the cerebral saintly Isabella has also some of the prig and prude in her regarding herself, though she is humane and practical enough about rectifying Mariana's situation. The Duke, who is subtle and seems -one assumes - have come to his own conclusions about Angelo which are sadly borne out, can als be said to be an officious meddler,
though for one of his subjects to say so would lead to whipping and hanging. Lucio, of course, has a good natured streak, and seems to appreciate an inherent nobility in Claudio that past critics have tended to dismiss because the poor fellow breaks down and pleads for his life at the cost of her dishonour in the prison scene.

That is intriguing, about burning. Horrible indeed.

Yes, a barbaric age indeed, though I always remind myself that our age will hopefully seem barbaric to people in four hundred years' time.

In 'Julius Ceaser' when you think about it, Shakespeare was on shaky ground. Tyrannicide?

I'll post off Angelo in his swanky purple outfit and the outraged looking Isabella on Tuesday. Thanks so much.

I've got 'Two Gentleman' (wearing unconvincing wigs) and King Lear (I don't see why it had to be all in black,it's stark enough without that) and All's Well (my hands-down favourite so far) so what should be next? Tone and Cleo? I believe you said it was a bit of a disappointment,and Ian Charleson was rather too like Bertram in it, but shall be fascinated...

Jessica