The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 16.1532 Thursday, 15 September 2005
[1] From: Abigail Quart <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Wednesday, 14 Sep 2005 12:04:47 -0400
Subj: RE: SHK 16.1499 Performing Angelo
[2] From: Robert Projansky <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Wednesday, 14 Sep 2005 15:57:55 -0700
Subj: Re: Performing Angelo
[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Abigail Quart <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Wednesday, 14 Sep 2005 12:04:47 -0400
Subject: 16.1499 Performing Angelo
Comment: RE: SHK 16.1499 Performing Angelo
Any character who addresses his penis onstage is a "comedic" character.
MfM II ii: What's this, what's this? Is this her fault or mine?
What I keep wondering is if Elizabethan propmasters had some sort of
device by which the swelling under Angelo's robes could be made readily
apparent to the audience. We know Angelo is hiding something from
Isabella because he has turned away from her, as evidenced by her twice
asking him to turn back, and his strangled utterances bidding her to go
and come back another time.
Our "problem" with Measure for Measure is that we take the pompous
pontificating of its characters seriously. The flaw is identical in
Angelo, Isabella, and the Duke. They all three believe they are above
human emotion, especially passion. They all three believe their ish
don't stink. It's helpful to remember the musical nature of
Shakespeare's plotting: each play sets up variations on a theme.
I've never had a problem with Measure because I was introduced to it by
Professor Martha England of Queens College, CUNY, who insisted we
remember that the above three characters were very young, otherwise
their mistakes would not be forgivable. All three are of an age to be
planning weddings and beginning families, and all three have opted out.
The "problem" of Measure begins when Angelo and the Duke are cast too
old for the audience to feel comfortable in forgiveness. And yes, the
Duke has much to be forgiven for. He is a Ruler Who Refuses to Rule. He
is in need of a serious slapping upside the head. In fact, Measure would
be a tragedy instead of a comedy if the Duke didn't run into Isabella at
the prison. It's quite amazing. He's dressed as a monk. She's dressed as
a nun. He's walking out of the cells, she's walking toward them...they
pass. As near as I can tell from the dialog in that scene, the Duke
almost leaves the stage entirely(because Isabella has the chance to
complete her dialog with the Provost) and then doubles right back to
speak to the Provost again, himself. It's like lightning strikes him
but it takes a second for him to process it. BUT AFTER THE DUKE SEES
THE NUNLET, ALL HIS PLANS CHANGE. He just refuses to admit why.
If Isabella has been similarly struck by lightning upon seeing that
young monk...
[2]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: Robert Projansky <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Wednesday, 14 Sep 2005 15:57:55 -0700
Subject: Re: Performing Angelo
Re Jack Heller's thoughts on a comic Angelo:
I agree that the seduction scene may well have been written as comedy.
It's all about sex and mostly about misunderstanding, basic comedy
material. When Angelo first starts, Isabel doesn't get it. First he
tiptoes, then he strides toward the explicit and she, in her maidenly
way still doesn't get it. He gets frustrated (more basic comedy stuff)
-- "your sense pursues not mine". As she cluelessly responds with her
innocent pleas she further incites him:
Th' impression of keene whips, I'ld weare as Rubies,
And strip my selfe to death, as to a bed,
How about Natalie Portman saying these Freudian fireworks downstage
while, say, Alan Rickman's jaw drops behind her? I think that could be
pretty funny.
But --you will attempt that comedy at your peril. At every M4M I've ever
seen, when Angelo starts in on Isabel all the women in the audience
first squirm, then scowl, then seethe. Then it gets worse for them: the
solution has Mariana, who, though scorned, still wants Angelo, agreeing
to let him do her (in silence) as a stand-in for the woman he really
wants, which further hugely irritates your female audience, who would
rather have Angelo end up with the axe instead of that pathetic Mariana.
To compensate for playing the seduction scene for laughs I think you
would have to really make Angelo squirm before he is forgiven.
Sorry to make this so long, but Jack Heller's post reminded me of more
of M4M I think is funny:
I've always thought Isabel's visit to her doomed brother Claudio is a
comic scene, although I've never been able to convince anyone else. She
comes to say there's no hope, and Oh, by the way, the sainted deputy is
actually a devil: he'll let you live if he can bed me. Although Claudio
at first clucks sympathetically with her refusal even to imagine such a
thing, soon he's trying to sell her on the idea. Although it's always
played solemn as stone, I believe it was written to be funny, that
"Death is a fearful thing" is a comic pivot line something like
Benedick's "Man is a giddy thing" -- a lame general abstraction about
nature to justify one's own less-than-perfect self, and, of course,
human weakness is the stuff of comedy.
Has anyone seen this scene played for laughs? (And as long as I'm
casting this show, how about Richard E. Grant as Claudio?)
Bob Projansky
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