Measure4Measure

Reviewed by Martίn Hernández
City Garage
Through July 9

RECOMMENDED

With its hashtag retitle alluding to the #MeToo Movement, author/adaptor Charles A. Duncombe’s version of William Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure offers a timely skewering of sexual harassment, religious hypocrisy, and state repression. Rather than a wholesale adaptation, however, Duncombe maintains the original setting and intersperses contemporary banter and narration with the original text. The new dialogue is bandied about by a trio of women performers, a sort of “girl power” Greek chorus portraying multiple roles – multi-tasking is a female forte, right? The results are mixed, with stellar performances from the cast under Fredéréque Michel’s direction and witty but ofttimes peripheral additions from Duncombe.

The Duke of Vienna (Troy Dunn) fakes a diplomatic mission and goes undercover as a friar to observe the true lives of his subjects. Temporarily filling in are his deputies, the pious and conservative Angelo (a suitably stoic Nathan Dana Aldrich, alternating with Anthony Sannazzaro) and the elderly and ineffective Escalus (Andy Kollak). Angelo, flexing his “tough on crime” muscles, begins to firmly enforce laws about which the Duke has been lax. Clamping down on the pre-marital and adulterous sex rampant in the licentious city, Angelo shutters the brothels and orders the beheading of Claudio (a most animated Angela Beyer), a local gentleman, for impregnating his own fiancée Juliet (also Beyer). Claudio’s chaste sister Isabel (a tender but tough Naomi Helen Weissberg) pleads for her brother’s freedom and Angelo offers a deal— Claudio’s untouched head for Isabel’s untouched body.  

Designer Josephine Poinsot’s meticulous costumes contribute to the actors’ character embodiments. Angelo’s all black costume reinforces his fascistic demeanor, especially in his immoral dealings with the moral Isabel, who is clad in a regal scarlet gown that may conceal her torso but not her dignity. The futility of trusting in the Church or the State to protect women from sexual predators is driven home in the words of both Shakespeare and Duncombe. Sadly, not much has changed since then.

Courtney Brechemin, Kat Johnston, and Beyer skillfully juggle multiple roles, while director Michel manipulates that dynamic with some clever clowning in staging and costume changes. The three also break character — as well as the play’s time period — snidely calling bullshit on the hypocritical plotting of the male characters. Lucio (Brechemin), a friend to Claudio, serves as a narrator/newscaster, relating the machinations behind the scenes in a sneering tone that exemplifies the cynicism of the populace for its rulers. Aldrich is authentic as the devout Angelo, struggling to control his unholy desires for Isabel, while Dunn cuts an elegant figure as the Duke, who gains sympathy for his people as he meanders about them in disguise. In the end, however, they may be just two sides of the same chauvinist coin.

City Garage, 2525 Michigan Ave., Bergamot, Building T1, Santa Monica; Fri.–Sat., 8 pm, Sun., 4 pm; through July 9. www.citygarage.org.