A Midsummer Night\'s Dream

-l-l

PRO.,ECT MUSE' Henry Vlll, and: Measure for Measure (revlew) Tanl Bourus

Shakesp€aB Bulletin, Volume 31, Numb6r3, Fall2013, (Artide)

pp.48

94

Published by The Johns Hopkins University Press DO I :' 1 0 I 35yehb.20 1 3.0049

For additional informaton about thls article htlpJ/mus6.ihu.6du/journalyshb/summary/v031/31.3.bourus.hlml

Access p.ovided by lndiana unive.sily Purdue Univ lndianapolis (14 May 2014 '12:00 GMT)

Tnenrnn Rnvrpws

Heflry

YIII

Presentcd by the Chicago ShakespearcTheater on Navy Pier, Chicago, Illioois. April3O-June 16,2013. Directed by Barbara Gaines. Scenic Design by James Noone. Costume Design byMariann S. Vcrheycn. Lighting Design by Anne Militello. Original Music and Sound Design by LindsayJones. Choreography by Ilarrison McEldowncy. With Lance Baker (Gardiner), Katc Buddeke (Old Lady), David Darlow (Cardinal Campeius), Kevin Gudahl (Thomas Morc/Survcyor/Grif6th), Scon JaecL (Cardinal Wolsey), Ora Jones

(Qrcen Kathcrine), David Lively (Norfolk), Andrew Lonr (Buckingham), Mike Nussbtum (Suffolk), Christina Pumaricga (Anne Boleyn), Samuel Taylor (Cromwell), Gregory Wooddell (Henry \4II) and others.

Measarefor Meanre Presented by The Goodman Theatre, Chicago, Illioois, &Iarch 9-April 14, 2013. Directed by Robert l'alls. Set by Walt Spangler. Cosrume Design by Ana Kuzmanic. Lighting by Marcus Doshi. Origioal Music and Sound Dcsign by Richard Woodbury. With Jeffrey Carlson (Lucio), Celeste M. Cooper (Juliet), Aaron Todd Douglas (Pompey), Alejandra Escalante (Isabella), Billy Fenderson (Frofi), Joe Foust (Cardinal Thomas/Barnardine), Sean Fortunato (Elbow), Kevin Fugaro (Claudio), Cindy Gold (Mistress Overdone), John Judd (Escalus), Katc LoConti (Mariana),James Newcomb (Duke), A. C. Smith (Provost), Daniel Smith (Abhorson), Jay Whittaker (Angelo) and others.

Trrnr

Bounus, Ialiana

U

1)ersit!

/ Pudue Utia,a-ritJ, Ind;ata?olit

Entering the Shakespeare-friendly 500-seat Courryard Theatre with its thmst stage and intimate galleries, the flrst thing the audience saw was a huge black banner with "Henry \rlll" scrolled out in massive gold gothic letters, hanging over the stage. It looked Iike a piece of empty, prctty sccnery, But then the play began as an uncxpectcdly operatic adaptation of the start of a Catholic High Mass in the old Latin sryle. Accompanied by swelling liturgical organ and chorus, a procession of scarlet-cloakcd churchmen cntered from the back of auditorium center. They were led by Wolsey, who dragged behind him an enormous scarlet train, with a large fluted golden cross in the middle: a cross that covered Sl)ak.s?ed,.

Btlhtik 31.31485-562 O 2013 ThcJohnr Hopkins Urivcrsity

Press.

486 SHAKESPF-ART] BUI,LETIN

the entire thrust stage once the Cardinal had reached what might have been imagined as the foot ofthe altar. Standing upstage center with his back to the audience/congregation, Wolsey unclasped and dropped the cape. It thcn became a curtain, soaring over the stagc as it was raiscd high with the cross front-and-center, completcly blotting from view the name of the king. Bcfore thc specches cven bcgan, thc production thus visually established that Wolsey and the Catholic Church he represented were morc powerful than the King of England. But over thc cou6e of the play that scarlet Whore of Babylon rvould be gradually replaced by the trim Anglican-r.estmented Cranmer, and the fina1 christening ofthe baby Elizabeth was spectacularly celebrated with a shower ofgold stars falling onto I(ine llenry's daz-zling diamond-studded crown and gold silk cape as he held the infant in his arms. Catholicism and Protestantism werc, in this production, equally spec tacular, and both employed yards and yards of billorving colorful silk. Gaines, Noone and Verheyen transformed the spectacle that is written into thcJacobean script and the modern mythology of Kirg Hcnry \4II. They replaced long, slow, boring processions in healy antl embroidered velvets, elaboratc Tudor sets and massed cxtras, substituting thc royal magnificence of simple, elegant, expensive silk costumcs and panels. Gaines wanted silk because, she told me, it is the most scnsual offabrics, and shc was determined to makc this story sensual, The young ladies of the Court wore silk dresses, low-cut, stiff-bodiced, laced up the back and ofvaried floral colors, with skirts gathered, latticed, and fuIl. When they twirlcd, the silk lifted and whispered like the gossip in the Tldor court. Betwcen scenes one and two, a nameless buxom blonde, evidently one of Henry's early mistresscs, pulled sheets oflavender silk across the back ofthe stage, as though they werc bcd cLrrtains; thc light on these panels gradually darkened them to a royal puryle that matched the color of Kathcrine's dress in scenc two, cstablishing a chameleon court that was, for a rvhilc, dominated by her colors. At the end of the divorce scene, Henry in his fury pulled dorvn two grey pancls that rosc from the stage to the auditorium's high ceiling, For Anne's coronation, a horseshoe-shaped lavender curtain dropped to surround the entire thrust stage, concealing it fiom the audiencc; when it rose, it revealed cream curtains, which in turn rose to reveal a prcgnant Anne Boleyr displaycd on a pedcstal irr a dress and cape ofgold silk with sparkling crown, globe and scepter, heralded by trumpets and the checrs of an offstage crowd. We had 6rst seen Anne dancing. Gaines added a sccond dancc to the one Fletcher scripted in act one, scene four. A carefree, flirtatious group

'u.rnn'l zITJo ls,lrnol oloqd seul?c,ll?qjPg -{qPallai ut '411.';g ' r'r'IerrlJ l?Jr l\rlPrlS osrrll: -,.p 'ttL4 4tt rH Jo ""',.','P",i t i0; pux l.\rat ur'rltrA pur rJurprec 'e rrlPg r1u?-l "nrtdurrJ ,;'lrl;i;c ";.) t.*t'''3, t'*oqtr rls s? 8uo'I ^rrP-u.V. S:T.."tll p,nr6 .il"1os .uiv se eia'tutn6 ruusuq3 '1 :tg

1r"'rpri31,

^"irrq :;;;:';;;,;.iri^:1.,ru.3;

488 SHAKESPEARE IIULI-ETIN

ofyoung courtiers danced a modifiedpavan,incrcasingly fast and raucous, before the disguised King entered. The second dance began the same way, until thc Ki[g intelvened to seize Anne for himself Thc couple danced man'ordinaria, palm to palm like Romeo and Juliet in their first dance in Zeffirelt's 1968 film, alone on stage in spotlights given soft-focus by smoke machines, spinning slowly and eroticallywith the King aggressively leading. Later, in an interyolated dumbshow after Henry's conve$ation with Wolsey and Campcius about his'tonsciencc" (2.2), the King danced with his Qreen per ca rario, formally and stiffly, his boredom in clear contrast to lTer happiness. IJut as Katherine circled him, Anne entered behind them, sliding into the Qreen's orbit, and Katherine, humiliated, removed herselfwith what dignity she could. Anne-in layers offuchsia silk twirled around her body like gift wrapping-handed one end of a loosc scarf to Henry as she spun away from him, bcginning a modified tarantella.Wben she blew in his ear, he sank to his knees with an audible breathy groan as she rolled him onto his back and mounted him, holding him with thc scarf pulled sensuously around her body and between his legs. Whereas the text makes Henry the aggressor in the relationship, this dance made him a helplcss victim ofAnnet seduction. She stood behind him, her hand slid inside his shirt, and she pinched his nipple as he said, "conscience- / O, 'tis a tender place" (2.2.742-3). The amplification ofAnnet role was one ofseveral adaptations Gaines made to the text. She transformed the Duke of Suffolk into a kind of chorus (like thc onc in Henty h, maVjng him what she described as the play's spokesman for the "common man" (asir,,4 ManforAII Seasons).The role ideally suited }Iike Nussbaum, a veteran CST actor, who was the only male aristocrat not dressed in leather pants and high boots. Nussbaum was the first actor shc cast for the show. He bcgan thc play at floor level, speaking a few modified lines from the Prologue, and transitioned us into thc 6rst sccne, where he appropriated the role ofAbergcvanny, one ofseveral smaller parts he absorbed in order to guide the audience's perspective on the story. Thus, he spoke the lines of the First Gentleman about Katherine being "removed to Kimbolton' (4.1.34), adding the editorial "with appalling cruelry" In Ora Jones's powerful performancc, Kathcrine was the play's most sympathetic character by lar In act three, scenc one, Wolsey and Campeius physically tortured her until she screamed, collapsed and relented. Her final scene was made especially heartbreakirg by a rewriting of her "vision" of"spirits" (4.2) as a dream ofilenry returning to hcr, the young king dancing with his grey-haired wife the same romantic steps he had

THEATRE RE!'IEWS 489

danced with Anne, and placing her on a pedestal. (Always thc kiss of death for a relationship.) In shocking, ugly factory-steel relief against the bcautiful whispering silks, Gaines introduced an anachronistic dumpster half thc size of the stage. Some critics disliked this, and it was certainly disorienting at first. Gaincs spokc ofit as a "mctaphor." For Hcnry, shc said,'people are disposable." The metaphor was immediately intelligible for a contemporary American audience in a way that dynasric politics arc not. In the arc of the play, and especially on a second viewing it worked. In thc 6rst scene, raging against Wolsey, Buckingham pulled down the hanging Catholic curtain and stuffed most of it into that dun.rpstet, which then reappeared at the end ofBuckingham's next scene (2.1). Instead ofbeing led to his execution in a procession, hc was left alone in a spotlight as thc dumpster movcd forward relentlessly with thc grindirg postmodern mechanical sound of a garbage truck trash compactor, louder than anything else in thc production. A door in the dumpster opened to reveal an indusftial lurnace vcrsion of hell's-mouth. Buckingham, having nowherc else to go, rushed into it, and the door slammed behind him with metallic 6nality. Into this dumpster Wolsey and Kathcrinc, too, eventually followed: he stomped into red 6re, she hobbled into blue light. But always the sequcncc began with the grating approach; always it culminatcd in the metallic slam. At the end ofthc play, when Anne stood alone onstage in her silks, already replaced by Jane Seymour and abandoned by the king and everyone else, the dumpster never appeared-but the harsh roar of its approach filled Annc's face with terror for the split second before she and we were plunged into 6nal darkness.

Bcforc we heard a word of Shakespearc (or Middlcton), we saw Walt Spangler's gritty, trashy, soaring 1970s New York, which dominated the stagc and auditorium, The playt frrst words were ncon signs advertizing peep shows and )OO( sex for sale. As the lights went down, the low, strong tension ofWoodbury's score came up on the sound system, dominated by bass baritone strings that recurred throughout the performance, sometimes alore, sometimes underlying the dialogue. What director Robert Falls called 'the Prologuc" was a postmodern dumb show, reminiscent of Melly Stillt frenetic opening for The Reoageri Tragedl at the National Theatre (2008): a compartmentalized beehive srvirl ofdesperate metrosex to the hypnotic disco rhythm ofDonna Summers's "Love to Love You Baby." But tl.rere was no love therc, except pcrhaps thc isolated love of

490 SHAKESPEART] BUT-I-}:TIN

Fig. 2. The sct, designcd by Walt Sp.rngler', of thc Goodman Thcatret 2013 production of MeasureJbr Maosnz, dirccted by Robert Falls. Photo courtesy of Liz Lauren.

God embodicd in Alcjandra Escalantct Isabella, downstagc left, praying, completely scparated from the crowded turmoil bchind hcr. Ironically, Isabella signcd thc cross to the pulsing sexual rhythm ofthe music, rocking on her knees more orgasmically than any of the prostitutcs bchind her. Thc only other person on stage who seemed also to be longing for somcthing transcendert was an older man (Jamcs Newcomb) sitting on the huge bed center stage, who lilied a pistol to his forehead, contemplating an escape from his own self-disgust. But he did not pull the trigger. After paying the young whore in the bed hc pulled off his fakc mustache and glasses, transforming himself into the Duke as the set morphcd irto his opulent mayoral officc, replctc with a silk-and-scarlet cardinal sitting on the leathcr sofa and holding a brandy sniftcr Only now did the audicnce bcgin to hear early rnodcrn versc, in what Shakespearians would rccognize rs act onc, sccne four, d-re l)ukct conversatiol with his religious advisor explaining his decision to abdicate, at least temporarily. By this point, I'alls and his stellar crertive team and cast had the audience hookcd, and ncvcr lct thcm go in cithcr of the pcrformances I saw (on press night and then again near rhe cnd ofthe run). They made MeoJrrd a modern play. its charactcrs and situations imnrcdiately rccogniz-

THEAIRE RN\,'IEWS 491 ablc, in a production consistcntly creativc, intclligent and unpredictable, Newcomb'.s Duke, the best I've seen, proposed to disguise himself as an

Irish "Father Moynihari' rather than "l'riar Ludor.ic," and that simple change made sense ofhis fluid movcmcnts through what Falls callcd the "layers of race" in a mr.rlticultural urban m6langc of African Amcricans (Pompey, Provost, Julict), Italian and Polish Amcrican cops (including Elbow), and a pierced, lirstidiously crotch lbndling Sid Vicious rendition of Froth. "Isabclla" and "Claudio" (pronounccd as Hispanic names) were playcd by and as Latinos, occasionally speaking Spanish, aud their ethnicity made demographic sense ofhis patriarchal demand for family loyalty and her zealous commitmeut to Mothcr Church. This Isabella was never going to surrendcr to Jay Whittaker's creepy Anglo Angelo, who channelcd Chery Chasc's uptight nasal ncrdiness, complete with spiffy briefcase and constant fidgcting with papers on his desk. After her first departure, his "What's this? What! this?" was addressed to his own crotch, as though this forty-year-old virgin had nevc! secn an crection. When Isabclla cntcrcd for act two, sccne four, she walked straight to Angelo and passionately kissed him belore a complete blackout. When the lights came up again Angclo stood alonc and Isabella re-entered nunlike and in no way moving torvards him. The audience roared with surpriscd laughter, rcalizing that thc kiss was just Angelo's fantasy-a fantasy we all sharcd for that brilliant stage-moment. Equally comic was his awkvard piecemeal slide across the couch toward her. But after she threatcned him he turned brutal, almost raping her from behind before he stopped himsel( as ifunablc to completc the act ofpenetlation. He was never comic again. During his soliloquy in act four he forced himself to open thc trash bag and look at the bloody head inside ("He should have lived"), and after his cxposure in act five he collapsed into a fetal heap on the floor, where he rcmained for at lcast five minutes. But Newcomb's Dukc dominatcd the production as hc dominates the text. After his offstage helicopter-rleparture, rve ncxt saw him in a brilliantly chorcographed dumb shorv to thc bcat ofThc Rolling Stoncs's 'Miss You"; hc walked toward the '.rudience in clerical collar, and moved between alternately accclerating tnd slow motion sidewalk streams of humanity as he donned his hat and glasses. "lle absolute for death" gradually turned into a snliloquy about his own mortality. The usually tedious exposition of the Duke '.s 6rst dialogue with Isabella became a virtuoso turn by the character and thc actor: "by this is yotr brother saved, your honor untaintcd, the poor llariana advantagcd, and thc corrupt deputy scaled" (3.1,.244-5) accclerated in pace and climbcd an octave into a

492 SIIAKESPEARE BUI-LETIN

climax that delighted both himself and thc audicnce. Isabella, before leaving, gratefully and reverently kissed the priestt hands, and after she departed he marvcled at the smell of hcr lips on his skin. Hc split "go mend, go mend" into two sentenccs, onc addresscd to Pompey, the other to Elbow and the other corrupt cops. In act fbur, sccne one he prompted, and watchcd, Mariana's exchange o1'clothcs with Isabella: somcthing the plot would seem to require but which l've never seen so powerfully staged, thc tlvo womcn awkwardly stripping to thcir underwear while their priest watched, mute. The druugcd-out "Katc Keepdown' (Isabel Ellison), whom the I)uke forces Lucio to rrarry, turned out to be the same prostitutc the Dukc had bcddcd in thc overture. Morally, all this was questionablc at bcst, but audiences could not help liking the Duke, in part because of the arc fiom his snicidal opening to his uncontaincd happiness in the 6nal scenc. His exuberance was directly related to the production's own metatheatrical playfulness. Early in act one, scene two, Po[rpey turncd to thc audience to reassure us, "Don't worry, it's an Elizabethan jokc," a linc that got the production's 6rst laugh. This was soon followed by another big laugh when he explained that'h wise alderman put in for" thc whorehouscs in thc ciry and then when he again turned to the politically-savty Chicago audicnce with a "you know what I mcan)" that was part qucstiol, part affirmation of communally shared knowledge. Likewise, Elbow's funnicst scxual malapropism was an intcrpolated explanation that Froth had askcd Elbow's wife "to perform

Horatio." Like the production, thc Duke cncouraged us to revel in the theatricality of it.all. He revcalcd his idcntiry to the Provost simply by melodramatically removing his glasses, a momertt of comic metatheater that thc audience lovcd and that prepared thcm for his similarly ridiculous revelation in the 6nal sccne.'l'he tonguc st.aycd in thc cheek up to the last lines of the text, when the Dukc proposed to Isabella. Before she could respond to him, the music ofDonna Surnmcrs's "Last Dance" startcd up out ofnowhere, to Isabella's bervilderment but to his and our nostalgic deIight. The Duke bcgan pairing off couplcs-first forcing Angelo to dance with Mariana and Lucio with Kate Kecpdown, br,rt then also pairing off Escalus with the black female secretary (suL:stituted for the Justice in act two, scene one) with whom heU becn having an affair, and then pairing off nvo male bodyguards. Soon thc rvholc onstage cnsemblc lined up forJolrn Travolta's famous Sdturd0] Nighl lt aer disco-dance. Everybody seemcd happy in the frank sillincss of it all. But thc production did not cnd there. Barnardinc, in thc show's trademark 70s-film slow-motion, stcalthilv approached Isabella-not, as we

TI IFATRE REVIEWS 493

might expect, to dance with her, thc ugly duckling rvith the nun, but to grab her throat and stab her bcforc the l)uke's bodyguards could intervene. In horrified slow motion, thc Dukc rushed forward too late to save her, and cradled her in a Piati posc as thc curtain dropped slowly and Donna Summcrst wail rose. The play pullcd us all up into its nct, like a hugc haul offish, and thcn in thesc last scconds Falls cut the net and left us all flopping on the deck. This can all be defcnded, iotellcctually nnd morally, as a stunningly original interpretation of the tcxt. Fbr lhlls, the Duke is a manipulative fraud from beginning to end. In an interview, Falls called him "a bipolar liberal" who at playt cnd prrdols and relcascs from prison an indisputably guilty and uuepentant murdcrer Iialls told rnc that he was particularly struck by Harold Bloom's chaptcr on the play in Shdkespeare and the In' oention of the Humaa, which devotes norc space to Barnardine than to any other character. But whereas Bloom sees Barnardine, like Falstaff, as a quintessentially Shakcsperrean bcnevolcnt sclf-portrait, Falls sees him as a dangerous psychopath and his pardon as a symptoin ofthc Duke's moral blindness. "The Duke learns rLbsoliLtcly nothing during the course ofthe play," Falls believcs, and so thc dircctor taught him a lesson in the productiont 6nal, unsctipted momcnts. In doing so, he forced audiences to think, and to aryue, about thc issues thtt thc Play intcrrogates: moraliry law, mercy and mcr* sick obsession with lcmalc sexualiry Nevertheless, almost everv revierver and every spectator I've consulted rejected this ending, and so did I whcn I first saw it. Some ofthose rejections may have been bascd on kncc-.icrk traditionalisrn, but on reflection I would locate the productiot's problem not in the 6nal scene, but in act fouq scene threc, where Barnardinc (Joc I'bust) nadc his first aPpearancc, pot bellicd and drunk. Hc did pull a knifc on thc Dukc, but the rest ofthe scene was consistently ftrnny: rve laughed when Pompey told Barnardine that a man who "is harrgcd betirnes in thc morning, may sleep the soundcr all the next day" (4.3.39-,10), we laughed when Barnardine empticd his plastic bottlc of boozc or'rto Pompey's head, we laughcd when the guard departcd rather than rcscuiltg the Duke, we laughed when Pompey and Abhorson turned and rvalkcd the other way instead of pursuing Barnardine. Iftlre Dukc was blincl, so were rvc, But could we, or he, really be blamed? Thc director dcliber.rtcly blindsided us. That's why so many spectators rejected the ending: ir's not that we were unrvilling to judge the Dukc, but that we objccted to bcing playcd. We actually felt sorry for thc Duke, rathcr than judging him. His punishmcnt seemed immeasurably disproporrionarc t.r Iris crirnc.

494 SHAKESPEARE BUT,LETIN

Even so, every production must interfolatc an interpretation, a set of unscripted physical movements, into the texnral sllence of Measurefor Measure's endir.g and this one was more thought-provoking, more intellectually and aesthetically daring, than any I have seen or read about. Itt not a bad thing to send spcctators out of thc thcater in animated argument with each other abour thc mcanin{a of thc story. Like the whole performance, the denouement pulled a text lbur centuries o1d kicking and scrcaming into the prcsent.

"ed!6%

Kiag Ricbard III Presented by TeatrJaracza, L6d7, Poland. Opcncd March 23,2012. Directed by GrzegorzWi6nicwski. Set by Grzcgorz Wiinicwski. Adaptcd by Grzegorz Wi{niewski and Jakub Roszkorvski. Nlusic by Ilefal Kowalcz,yk. Costumes by Barbara Guzik. With Hubert Jarczak (Clarence), Marek Kalu2yriski (Richard III), Przemyslaw Kozkrrvski (King lidward/Archbishop), Milena Lisiecka (Qreen Elizabcth), Matylda Paszczcnko (Margarct), Pawel Paczesny (Prince of Wales/Murdcrer), Tornasz Schuchardt (Tyrrel), Michal Staszczak (Buckingham), Zo6a Uzelac (Duchess of York), Justyna Wasilewska (Lady Anne), Andrzej Wichrowski (King IIcnry tr\lllastings), Marcin Wodarski (Rivers) and Zorian Zasina (Dukc ofYork).

Macparerua Crr6raK AND AcNrEszKA R^suus,

Uioasit!

of Ldd,

The news ofthe unearthing in a parldng lot in Leicester ofwhat were thought to be the remains