The only hope is that his sibling, a novice, sue for his life, and this is where the biggest hypocrisy of the play comes in, as the deputy demands sex from the novice in exchange for a pardon.
Rourke’s twist is to play (a heavily edited version of) the story twice: First set in the year the play was first performed and with the central roles cast the way Shakespeare wrote them; then in the present day with the genders reversed. So we open in 1604 with Angelo (Jack Lowden) in the position of power, propositioning a horrified Isabella (Hayley Atwell) and eventually being brought down, not by her telling the truth, but by the fact that the Duke was there all along in disguise and can confirm it. There’s an irony to a revised Measure for Measure turning up at the precise time that one played completely straight would feel ripped straight from the headlines: With the production opening at the tail end of the Brett Kavanaugh case, a play that climaxes in a courtroom battle where a woman’s convincing allegations of sexual misconduct are laughed out of the room is topical already.
Getting the entire story done before the interval so it can be done all over again after it demands some heavy cutting, and Rourke’s edit focuses very firmly on the major beats of the main story. What’s left is more unambiguously dark although there’s still some moments that get laughs; I’m definitely not complaining about the “funny” pimps mostly ending up on the cutting room floor. I know there’s some good scenes in Act IV and a memorable character who’s completely gone from this version, but in terms of narrative it’s Act V of Merchant of Venice levels of filler so it’s not something that I missed when rushing through the story like this. And considering what a rushed job it is the production impressively hits a lot of the emotional points it needs to. Of course the second half is the big selling point, and that’s what I was inevitably waiting to see how well it worked.
The answer is, much better than I expected. Peter McKintosh’s wood-panelled stage is a sparse, severe setting for the 1604 section, flashing coloured lights signalling the move to 2018 and the entire play being run again with an almost identical script – except even more heavily edited because some plot details don’t need explaining again. Now Isabella is the puritan put in charge of the city, while Angelo is the novice – turned here into a junkie about to go into rehab, the traditionally Christian structure of the process providing the reason he’s so determined to stick to strict religious rules. Like any high-concept reinvention of a Shakespeare play it takes a certain suspension of disbelief to make it plausible, but on the whole this does work surprisingly well.
The question, particularly in light of the recent news cycle and the last couple of years, is what the gender reverse actually has to say – 400 years might have passed but the balance of power hasn’t equalised, let alone swung in the opposite direction, so the second act’s version doesn’t show us the story as it applies now. But in fact there is much that Rourke’s production subtly observes, in the audience’s reactions to the events as much as those of the characters: The new Isabella is still a villain (even if you respond differently to her sexual blackmail, she still orders Claudio’s execution even after she thinks she’s reaped the rewards of that blackmail) but there’s clearly more audience sympathy towards her initial feelings of confused lust (who knew that “implausibly healthy-looking junkie” would turn out to be Jack Lowden’s best look?) There’s a subtle distinction in the characters’ reaction to the trial scene as well – she might be the one with the power but her accuser is believed more easily, and a woman in power is someone to be knocked off her pedestal.
Men aren’t the enemy in Rourke’s version though, toxic masculinity is, and we see how men also experience double standards when Claudio immediately makes fun of Angelo’s complaint that he’s having sex demanded of him. When I saw in the cast list that Ben Allen was playing Frederick I was interested because that isn’t actually a Measure for Measure character; I realised during the first half who he would turn out to be, the alternate universe version of Mariana (Helena Wilson,) Angelo’s spurned ex. With the character gender-flipped, Isabella’s accusation in court that “[his] promised proportions came short of composition” takes on a very different meaning, and gives a male Frederick a darker reason he might still be obsessed with her several years later. I was surprised, in the new context, not to see the bed trick more overtly exposed as rape.
With Atwell and Lowden both giving their characters a certain cold quality they give the impression of being two sides of the same coin from the start, giving a certain logic to the idea of flipping it at the interval. But while the sexual politics is the main focus of this, there’s enough little changes to the characters’ behaviour in the entire story to keep the repeat performance interesting. So the Duke is a bit more of an ineffectual character here, and the Provost (Adam McNamara,) who in 1604 is very invested in Claudio’s fate, is in 2018 a rather disinterested barrister. Of course that could be down to the fact that, in the second version, anyone who encounters the Duke in his disguise sees right through it, and makes no pretence of being fooled, so a lot more people know how easily Isabella’s orders can be overturned.
The production’s abrupt ending does leave a few questions hanging – I did want to see how it would deal with the note of gay panic introduced to the ending by the gender-swap, but this isn’t really called back to – but for the most part Rourke has delivered on the intriguing premise she came up with for a play that’s hard to love as it stands.
Measure for Measure by William Shakespeare is booking until the 1st of December at the Donmar Warehouse.
Running time: 2 hours 45 minutes including interval.
Photo credit: Manuel Harlan.
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