Playwright: Bill Shakespeare
At: Next Theatre, 927 Noyes, Evanston
Phone: (847) 475-1875; $18-$29
Runs through: May 18
What's ethical? How do the needs of society outweigh the desires of the individual? Who am I to judge? Shakespeare explored these, and other serious questions, when he penned one of his most satirical and biting comedies, Measure for Measure. M4M, as I'm surprised director Jason Loewith didn't title his version of the play, concerns the benevolent Duke Vincentio (Raymond Fox), who has let his kingdom go to the dogs, fornicationally speaking. The lads and lasses under his rule are getting it on here, there, and everywhere, and unwed pregnancies and unwarranted merriment are the order of the day. The Duke, wondering if all this unbridled lust is healthy, decides to inform his deputy, Angelo (Joseph Wycoff) that he is outward bound for Poland, and will leave his rule under Angelo's stern eye. What Angelo doesn't know is that the duke is watching from close by, gussied up as a friar. Left to his own impulses, Angelo decides to make an example of Claudio (Steve Haggard), who has impregnated his ladylove, Juliet (Jennifer Avery) out of wedlock. Claudio will hang for his transgressions, and no amount of pleading will save him … even when said pleading comes from Claudio's sister, Isabella (Cassandra Bissell), fresh into the convent. Well, maybe if Isabella will yield her unsullied self to deputy Angelo, he might be persuaded to spare her brother.
Thus is the set up for one of Shakespeare's less frothy and pithier social commentaries masquerading as farce. Next's artistic director, Jason Loewith, has shaped a mixed bag of delights and disappointments from the script. On the plus side, he has cast Cassandra Bissell in the dual—and polar opposite—roles of the chaste Isabella and the naughty Mistress Overdone. Bissell knows her way around iambic pentameter and is able to shape her characters and their speech credibly and with humane characterization. As Angelo, Joseph Wycoff gives us a cold, calculated performance under which bubbles a blend of lust for power and the corporeal … things haven't changed much since Shakespeare's times in the hypocrisy of many of our leaders. But other than a couple of good performances, Loewith misses the mark on this take. Most of his attempts to bring the inherent humor in the script fall flat, largely due to a lack of taste when it comes to directorial decision-making. Shakespeare's requisite buffoons, Pompey (Kelly Cooper) and Froth (Steve Haggard) are adolescent attempts at laughs that don't inspire much in the way of mirth … they try too hard. When Cooper appears in ludicrous—and purposeless—drag near the end of the show, the Next Company sinks to an amateurish, and desperate, ploy for laughs.
Andre Pluess and Ben Sussman, who have contributed on-target music and soundscapes to innumerable Chicago productions, also don't work here, with their electronic, trance-inspired background, which meshes inelegantly with the rest of the production (Joseph Wycoff's leather-clad lust dance to one such composition was embarrassing). Last, Brian Sydney Bembridge's scenic and lighting design, with its vibrant reds and fields of fake flora, may have looked good for the few minutes one might breeze through an art installation, but grows stale quickly here.
This Measure for Measure, which has the word 'judgment' at its core, is ironic, because the artistic judgment of its director is flawed, delivering a production that, for all its grabs at contemporary sensibilities, remains curiously dull, rendering it irrelevant.
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