‘Measure for Measure’ Before 1970 PDF Free Download
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11
BEFORE
1970
since
the
Second
World
War
and
references will occasionally
be
made
to
other
productions when they cast light
on
a
particular
view
of
the
play. I
do
not
wish to suggest
that
they constitute a
'second division'; they include distinguished work by Peter
Brook (Shakespeare Memorial
Theatre,
1950),John
Retallack
for
the
Actors'
Touring
Company
production
of
1980,
and
Michael
Rudman
for the
Caribbean
production
at
the
National
Theatre
in 1981.
11
'MEASURE
FOR
MEASURE'
BEFORE
1970
Before considering
the
main
productions we need to look briefly
at
the
play's
stage history before 1970 to account for its
burst
of
popularity
in
the
last
fifteen years.
Measure
for
Measure
has
had
a
scrappy
stage history. Following
its only recorded performance in Shakespeare's lifetime in 1604,
the
play
was
not
staged in
anything
like its original form for over
a century.
At
the Restoration it suffered
the
usual risible
attempts
at
'improvement',
Sir William
D'
Avenant
combining
elements from
the
play
with Beatrice
and
Benedict story from
Much
Ado
about
Nothing
and
calling the new compilation
The
Law against
Lovers.
In
1700 Charles Gildon
brought
out
an
adaptation
even more ludicrous
than
D'
Avenant's
with musical
interludes introduced as entertainments laid
on
by
the
enterprising Escalus for Angelo's birthday.
Both versions introduce
an
aspect
of
Measure
for
Measure
which
dogged
it
until well into the twentieth century.
D'Avenant
and
Gildon
cut
out
all low-life characters
and,
perhaps
surprisingly
in
view
of
the
reputation
of
the
Restoration stage,
made
the
remaining
characters more respectable.
D'
Avenant achieved
this
remarkable
result by having Angelo,
perturbed
by the low
moral
standards
of
women, merely test Isabella.
At
the
conclusion
of
the
play he marries her:
I'll
now
at
once cast off my whole disguise
....
Since you fully have
endur'd
the best
Of
all
your
sex, submissively I woo
To
be
your
lover,
and
your
Husband
too.
G. Nicholls, Measure for Measure
© Graham Nicholls 1986
Part Two: Peiformance
51
Charles
Gildon
goes further. Before
the
action
of
the
play
begins, Angelo
has
secretly
married
Mariana,
and
to
clear
up
any
remaining
unpleasantness
Claudio
has
made
an
honest
woman
of
Juliet.
Both
adaptors
sensed
that
in Measure
for
Measure
there
was a
disturbing
element
which a
contemporary
audience
would
not
accept.
In
detecting
this unsettling
aspect
of
the
play
in
treating
sexuality
and
the
precarious
nature
oflaw
and
authority,
D'Avenant
and
Gildon
were laying
down
the
foundations
for
the
charges
of
indecency
which
critics
(and
theatre
producers)
felt
bound
to
consider
for
the
next
three
centuries.
On
the
Georgian
stage
the
sexual
underworld
only
put
in
an
appearance
when
it was necessary for the working
of
the
main
plot.
In
the
acting
version
of
1777
the
second scene opens
with
the
entrance
of
the
disgraced Claudio: the
dirty
talk
of
the
gentlemen,
Lucio,
Pompey
and
Overdone
is totally removed.
This
area
of
the
play
has
always been
subject
to
cutting
and
rewriting.
In
1803
John
Philip
Kemble
restored some
of
the
racier
elements
when
he
played
the
Duke
to his sister
Sarah
Siddons's
Isabella,
but
there
was little
of
the
sub-plot
to
be
seen.
Kemble
and
Siddons were
acting
at
a time
when
Coleridge
was
categorising Measure
for
Measure as
'a
hateful
work
. . .
the
single exception to
the
delightfulness
of
Shakespeare's
plays',
and
Coleridge's
remarks
seem to reflect
the
view
of
the
nineteenth-century
audience
and
the
producers
who
catered
for
them.
Although
Measure
for
Measure
never,
as
Bernard
Shaw
implies,
disappeared
from
the
repertoire
altogether, its occasional performances
tended
to
be
the
work
of
dedicated
Shakespeareans.
In
1908
William
Poel
produced
the
play
under
Elizabethan
stage
conditions, a
production
which
bewildered some
members
of
the
audience
and
overwhelmed
others. Poel's
search
for
authenticity
did
not
extend
to
the
text:
'bawd'
was
hardly
spoken
during
the whole
performance
and
the climactic line
'By
yielding
up
thy
body
to
my
will' [II iv 164]
became
the
unmetrical
'By
yielding
up
thy
self
to
my
will'.
Even
so some local
Stratfordians
protested
that
the
play
was
unfit for
representation.
An
examination
of
the repertoire
of
the
Old
Vic
and
Stratford,
theatres
committed
to Shakespeare, reveals
that
between
1879
and
1914 Measure
for
Measure was performed only
