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Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports
2024
Ask The Duke, Why: How Fabrications Can Undermine Impact in Ask The Duke, Why: How Fabrications Can Undermine Impact in
Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure
Spencer D. Hansen
West Virginia University
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Ask The Duke, Why:
How Fabrications Can Undermine Impact in
Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure
Spencer D. Hansen
Thesis submitted
to the College of Creative Arts
at West Virginia University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
Master of Fine Arts in Acting
Dr. Radhica Ganapathy, Ph.D., Chair
Brianne Taylor, M.F.A.
Jerry McGonigle, M.F.A.
Jessica Morgan, M.F.A.
School of Theatre and Dance
Morgantown, WV
2024
Keywords: Acting, Duke, Shakespeare, Measure, Interpretation, Justification
Copyright 2024 Spencer D Hansen
Abstract
Ask The Duke, Why:
How Fabrications Can Undermine Impact in
Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure
Spencer D. Hansen
The following document recounts the observations and consequences that result from my
attempts at justifying the actions of Duke Vincentio in Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure. By
following my experience through the duration of West Virginia University’s 2023 production of
Measure for Measure, I examine the ramifications of justifying the Duke’s actions and the
potentially harmful consequences such justifications could create with regard to the play’s
reception. Additionally, this text outlines performance techniques, audience responses, rehearsal
strategies, and progressive interpretations for one of Shakespeare’s most challenging characters
in one of his most divisive plays.
Hansen iii
Acknowledgements
The pursuit of this thesis and the completion of my Masters in Acting have revealed to
me, more than anything else, the immense generosity required of effective instructors,
colleagues, and peers. I could not be where I am without the tenacity and confidence of my
committee members, teachers, and mentors that have helped usher me through this bewildering
landscape of artistic academia. My gratitude extends past the emotional relief that comes from
feeling so supported by so many competent professionals, and has become something even more
existentially gratifying. My goals, passions, and dreams gain plausibility and validation by mere
exposure to such mentors who give so much of their time and energy to guiding me through
seemingly insurmountable challenges both educational and personal.
Specifically, I want to thank Dr. Radhica Ganapathy, Jerry McGonigle, Brianne Taylor,
and Jessica Morgan for their trust and their patience as committee members for this thesis and
mentors in my artistic endeavors. You have guided me as a student, as a colleague, and as a
professional, and I will be thanking you for your support and your guidance in everything I do.
Other mentors who deserve specific thanks include: Ryan Scoble, Leland Blair, Joe Olivieri, Rob
Clare, Kaitlin Hopkins, and Patrick Avery.
To my personal friends and family, thank you for giving me the space to cultivate my
education and my passion. I swear I will call more often, and I hope that this thesis can serve as
tangible evidence of what your generosity has allowed me to pursue. My brothers, Keenan and
Quinn inspire me every day. My parents, Patrick and Dody, have done so much in shaping my
work and my spirit. Like an early, high-risk investment, the support I have received from my
family so early in my life has paid incalculable dividends, and has given me the chance at a
quality of life that few on earth are lucky enough to enjoy. Also, a profound ‘thank you’ must go
to my fellow scholars and peers Shelby Garret and Charlie Meeks for supporting me through the
completion of this degree and this thesis.
Without the dedication and sacrifice of these incredible people, my growth as a scholar,
as a professional, and as a person would not have been possible. You all have my most
inextinguishable gratitude for the rest of my education, my career, and my life.
Hansen iv
Table of Contents
Introduction....................................................................................................................................1
Chapter 1: Research and History.................................................................................................4
Chapter 2: Text and Character Analysis................................................................................... 10
Chronological Analysis............................................................................................................12
Chapter 3: Character Interpretation and Methodology.......................................................... 42
Chapter 4: Casting and Rehearsal Process............................................................................... 49
Chapter 5: Embodiment and Performance............................................................................... 59
Conclusion.................................................................................................................................... 68
Bibliography................................................................................................................................. 70
Hansen 1
Introduction
Shakespeare’s text means a great deal to me, and perhaps in ways that are distinct from
an average professional actor’s respect for the poet. As a very young actor, I grew up attending
productions at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. My grandparents lived very near to the festival
theaters, and we would see at least one play every time we visited. My exposure to Shakespeare
at a young age succeeded in bestowing upon me a reverence for his work and a solemnity
towards the craft of performing his plays.
Most of my performance background is based in musical theatre and piano performance.
The majority of my Shakespearean performance experience often would come through
adaptations like West Side Story and Kiss Me Kate. I have performed in many of Shakespeare’s
plays without musical adaptations, but most of my training, until joining the MFA candidacy at
West Virginia University, was geared towards musical performance. I initially thought this
training would leave me unprepared for most Shakespearean performances, but I have found that
the opposite is much more true. Musical performance training represented some of the most
helpful techniques for interpreting Shakespeare’s text. Many of the same obstacles faced by
experienced Shakespearean performers are also faced by those performing in musical theatre.
Just as in poetry, music requires adherence to meter, and the character speaks in poetic lyrics that
match with the melody lines given by the composer. This must be maintained while producing a
believable and perhaps entertaining acting performance. After four hundred years of fame and
reverence, the adaptation of Shakespeare’s work into other mediums becomes unavoidable. I am
grateful for the training I have received thus far, and the artistic techniques and philosophies that
I carry with me will only continue to support and inform the work that I do in the future.
Hansen 2
A major reason why I decided to pursue an MFA in Acting was to receive a deeper and
more rigorous training in acting Shakespeare. The opportunities provided to me by WVU and by
my participation in our production of Measure for Measure have helped my confidence to grow
and flourish. The Duke represents an extreme performance challenge for any actor. This
challenge only increased my excitement, as I was able to view this role as a chance to prove my
mettle in one of Shakespeare’s more difficult pieces.
Measure for Measure carries the weight of hundreds of years of artistic interpretation and
adaptation. Famously one of Shakespeare’s “problem plays,” directors and actors have debated
how to appropriately interpret this piece for hundreds of years. I do not intend to invalidate any
specific interpretation of the Duke or of Measure for Measure as a whole. Rather, I will attempt
to present only one potential interpretive option and an explanation of the benefits a performer or
creative interpreter could derive from such an option.
The Duke, specifically, serves as the audience’s primary perspective throughout the piece.
Nearly thirty percent of all the words in the play are spoken by the Duke, and there are just a
select few scenes in which the Duke is not present. As events in Vienna unfold, the Duke
observes them while in disguise and acts only when he is moved to do so. This provides the
audience with a surrogate perspective observing and learning of the play’s events in tandem with
the audience themselves. This allows for a constant standard of success for the audience to
follow, an anchor that carries the crowd through the dense Elizabethan poetry.
In addition to this immense textual undertaking, the successful interpretation of the
greater story relies upon the Duke, and the actor playing him, to effectively communicate
expository details to the audience and to other characters. The central narrative revolves around
the Duke and his decisions; additionally, the plot that he is tasked with spearheading, often
Hansen 3
leaves a sour taste in the audience’s mouth, either out of moral disgust or, unfortunately,
confusion.
Performers are, ultimately, storytellers; and the success or failure of their work greatly
depends on approach and interpretation. A failure in storytelling could come from anywhere,
whether the characters were performed in a way that prevented the audience from believing in
them and empathizing with them, or whether the audience failed to understand the plot as a
whole. For contemporary audiences in particular, Shakespeare can be difficult to understand
simply due to the natural evolution of the English language. Communicating a story successfully
comes down to more than just clarity of text and semantic specificity. Characters communicate
story through intention, through reaction, through non-verbal dramatic irony. The play’s success
hinges on the audience’s ability to grasp what the character is experiencing, not just the literal
definitions of the words each character says. Understanding the text definitively is important, but
an actor can elevate their work even more through interpreting the text and character through
meaning and experience. One must understand the definitive meaning of Shakespeare’s text so
thoroughly that the expository recitation of lines can be abandoned in favor of speaking the text
with intention and purpose at the forefront of an actor’s focus.
Duke Vincentio speaks for most of the play and makes most of the vehicular decisions
regarding event sequence in the story, so would it not seem reasonable that an actor could
improve the play by attempting to understand what the Duke intends with each and every word?
In most productions, the answer would be ‘yes;’ however, in this text, I will outline why, in the
particular case of Duke Vincentio in Measure for Measure, the play could be greatly benefitted
by the actors and directors saying ‘no.’
Hansen 4
Chapter 1: Research and History
Vienna, in the late 16th and early 17th centuries, was an influential city-state within the
Holy Roman Empire. Through the multiple reformation movements started by Martin Luther in
1517, Vienna retained its strong ties to the Catholic Church (Parsons 131). Shakespeare’s
education in global politics and the extent to which he was aware of worldwide events is difficult
to determine with necessary precision, however it is reasonable to assume that Shakespeare was
aware of Vienna as a populous cultural center whose rulers were beholden to the whims of the
catholic Habsburg emperors. Additionally, when considering the historical context within which
Shakespeare wrote Measure for Measure, it is necessary to frame the writing of this play within
the context of Queen Elizabeth’s death in 1603 followed by the ascension of King James I (VI).
Written in 1604, Measure for Measure was one of the first plays Shakespeare wrote with King
James I in power. His relationship to King James I continued to improve until eventually his
acting troupe, previously the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, became the King’s Men after securing
patronage from King James I (Brown 19).
The recency of the throne’s inheritance and the continuing schism between Protestants
and Catholics near the beginning of the 17th century provides fertile ground for religious and
political controversy. After building fame as the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, Shakespeare and his
colleagues must have necessarily been keenly aware of what plays they should or should not
produce. With this in mind, the decision to produce Measure for Measure, a play starring the
despot of a Catholic city-state, implies the deliberate political positioning of a playwright and his
theatre troupe. King James I’s relationship with the Catholic Church was tumultuous at its most
generous (Doelman 7). The Gunpowder Plot in 1605 is evidence enough that practicing English
Hansen 5
Catholics in 1605 were not happy with the way they were being treated under James I’s rule.
What then would motivate Shakespeare to write and produce a play starring a ruler of a very
Catholic city? Perhaps the King wanted to appear more sympathetic to the Catholic citizenry in
London at the time, and sponsoring a play where the primary protagonist publicly supports the
Catholic Church would position him more favorably in the eyes of Catholic theatergoers.
Perhaps the piece was written to get the attention of a new monarch who may be looking for a
troupe that produces politically motivated work in general. The precise reasoning and artistic
taste within 17th century British monarchs and playwrights is, to an extent, lost to time, and
speculation can only take us so far down the road of rigorous theatrical scholarship. Nonetheless,
the timing of Measure for Measure’s debut production between the crowning of a new
controversial monarch and the royal patronage of Shakespeare and his theatre troupe presents
significant political and religious implications that require significant exploration.
For the purposes of this text, the importance of Shakespeare’s patrons and their
relationship to the Catholic Church simply provides context for the expansion of an actor’s
approach to performing the character, Duke Vincentio. The character himself travels through a
few different settings within Vienna throughout the piece that deserve historical explanations.
The main settings the Duke finds himself encountering are: his palace surrounded by advisors,
servants, and intrigue; the Church and its many monasteries and charity homes; and Vienna’s
prison system. The Duke spends most of the play in and out of various prisons, speaking to
prisoners and provosts in disguise.
The Duke’s palace, in Measure for Measure, provides the setting for only a few scenes
throughout the piece. The Duke is present in the palace for only one of them, the very first scene
of the play where Duke Vincentio gives orders to his advisors, Escalus and Angelo, to run the
Hansen 6
city while he is away. The Duke elaborates very little on the specifics of his plan, but he expects
Escalus and Angelo to comply with perfect obedience. All other palatial scenes do not include
the Duke. Even when the Duke ‘returns’ to Vienna at the end of the play to conduct his feigned
interrogation of Isabella and eventual reveal of himself as the strange friar who had been stirring
the proverbial pot, he conducts his interrogations and revelations in the streets of Vienna. He
instructs his advisors and courtiers to meet him at the gates of the city, where he holds an
impromptu court and investigates the crimes he observed while in disguise. The Duke is rarely
seen within the physical palace complex throughout the duration of this play.
In the 16th century, nearly all of Europe was experiencing religious reformation to
varying extents. Narrowing our exploration to just Austria and England, we know that England
had been going through its own religious structural upheaval since King Henry VIII abandoned
the Catholic Church in 1534. Austria, with its proximity to Martin Luther in Wittenberg,
Germany, was experiencing a religious reformation of its own, though the eventual changes to
religious structure in Austria would not progress quite as quickly as those in England. The Holy
Roman Empire still maintained its control over Austria, stifling the spread of Protestantism
through its close ties to Rome and the Catholic Church (Cameron 283).
This means, in Vienna during the 16th century, the Church and its draconian laws were
placed under the societal magnifying glass and examined by rulers and civilians alike. The
decision to disguise the Duke as a monk and practice religious rites in prisons and monasteries,
presents a picture of the Viennese rulers as above the Church, as if the Church and its traditions
were little more than costumes to be worn and displayed when attempting to remain
undiscovered. The Duke uses the religious rites of the Catholic Church as evidence in support of
his disguise, implying religious and dogmatic hypocrisy within the Viennese government and the
Hansen 7
Catholic Church itself. This abuse of power and tradition may have been viewed favorably by the
English court, as the English head of state had been established as head of the Anglican Church
for over half a century (Cameron). This treatment of religious tradition as a means to a political
end takes a very clear stance on where religion is placed in the societal hierarchy in England at
the time. Were this piece to depict Viennese rule more realistically, perhaps Shakespeare would
not have been so cavalier with the Duke’s abuse of power and influence over the church and its
traditions.
Within Vienna’s prison system, Shakespeare shows the Duke giving condemned prisoners
their Last Rites and doling out forgiveness in place of real, ordained clergy without addressing
the possibility of either the practice of fraudulent sacraments or assumption of spiritual
sovereignty. Either the Duke is mistreating the Catholic traditions present in Vienna at the time,
or the Duke assumes that he already possesses religious sovereignty and any sacraments or
traditions practiced by the Duke during his time in disguise are justified in the eyes of God and
the Pope. This stance of political supremacy over the Catholic Church is subtly implemented
throughout Measure for Measure. The Duke focuses the audience’s attention on the personal and
immediate issues regarding Isabella, Claudio, and Angelo, which distracts from the near
complete disregard of Catholic traditions. The Duke acts as either a fraudulent monk
inappropriately administering religious rites, or as head of state and head of the religion that
these prisoners are practicing. This apparent stance regarding the relationship between the
Church and the monarch reflects the sensibilities of the English populace at the beginning of the
17th century; and apparently, the stance was supported by King James I himself, as he became
the patron of Shakespeare’s theatre troupe within a few years of Measure for Measure’s
publication (Brown 23).
Hansen 8
The prisoners in Measure for Measure are either deranged unforgivable criminals who
would be rightfully imprisoned in nearly any political system regardless of religious affiliation,
or, they are reasonable citizens who are wrongfully imprisoned by a malevolent leader in
Angelo. Shakespeare intelligently neglects to include prisoner characters with ambiguous
circumstances bringing them into incarceration. Claudio is imprisoned for a law that Angelo
enforces, and most characters agree that Angelo’s blind enforcement of these laws is unfair and
unjust. Conversely, Barnadine, a long-term prisoner, is described as “A man that apprehends
death no more dreadfully but as a drunken sleep; careless, reckless, and fearless of what's past,
present, or to come; insensible of mortality, and desperately mortal” (Provost, IV, iii, 154-157).
Clearly, Shakespeare wanted the prisoners to be either deserving of punishment or deserving of
absolution in the eyes of the audience. If the Duke were to dispense religious judgment to
prisoners whose crimes were polarizing to most audience members, the Duke’s ignorance of
religious custom and abandonment of due process would become apparent, and distract from the
audience's ability to empathize with the Duke.
The Provost, a prison administrator within the Viennese punitive system, serves at the
whims of the Duke whether he is in disguise or not. Even when the Duke disguises himself as a
monk, the Provost gives the Duke quite a bit of freedom to manipulate and interfere with the
punitive process. The Provost expresses on multiple occasions how they require more enforcers
to be employed in service of Angelo’s new legal policies. Though the Provost must be the one to
enforce laws and execute punishments, they are given very little agency over their own
occupation, obeying the Duke as both politician and disguised clergyman. This vague obedience
to both the Church and state within Vienna imply the lack of power the enforcers have to
dispense justice, and even if they were given more enforcers and more autonomy to dispense
Hansen 9
punishment, Shakespeare makes it deliberately unclear as to which law the Provost must serve,
the statutory or the divine.
Shakespeare’s depiction of Vienna in Measure for Measure implies several nuanced
opinions on the relationship between Church and state. The Duke dons a religious facade as little
more than a disguise that allows him significant civilian freedom without legal scrutiny. This
presents a view of the Church as below the Duke, as a tool the Duke can use in order to
manipulate the citizens without obstruction. Meanwhile, the freedom the Duke experiences as a
disguised clergyman also presents a commentary on the assumed legitimacy of the Church and
its administrators even when they are shown to be definitively fraudulent in both qualification
and intent. Whether the Church is presented as a force for good or a force for evil, Shakespeare
clearly writes the Church as an institution to be manipulated by the reigning despot, highlighting
a clear power differentiation that may reflect poorly on the Church and those who hold power
within it.
Hansen 10
Chapter 2: Text and Character Analysis
When examining the Duke in Measure for Measure, without inventing reasons to justify
his behavior, it quickly becomes difficult to determine precisely why he makes many of the
choices that he does. Most decisions made by Duke Vincentio are directed toward goals that
could be much more efficiently achieved in many other more obvious ways. For example: in
order to save Claudio from his unjust punishment, the Duke chooses to attempt an act of
subterfuge and trickery that could easily and catastrophically fail if any one of the required steps
to complete it were to go wrong. At any moment throughout the play, he could have removed his
disguise, revealed himself to be the Duke, and pronounced Claudio innocent and cleared of all
charges while reciprocally condemning Angelo. This would of course prevent the Duke from
using the disguise for the rest of the play, but the character is necessarily unaware that he is in a
play. It is the actor’s job to justify why the character makes the choices they do.
Many plays display this kind of deliberate impracticality where characters choose a
sub-optimal way of overcoming an obstacle for the purposes of dramatic tension or conflict
continuation. A sign of a master playwright could often be the depiction of characters who,
despite their best efforts, find themselves in unavoidable conflict. This assumption of a
character’s “best efforts” being at the root of the decisions they make throughout a play is potent
fuel for emotional catharsis and relatability. It becomes much easier for audiences to empathize
with a character when they see the character making decisions that they themselves would make
if they were in the character’s shoes. Often, this relatability can be effectively portrayed by a
skilled actor empathizing with the mental state and accumulated knowledge that their character
acts upon whenever they make a decision during the play. It is when the character makes a
Hansen 11
decision that the audience disagrees with or does not understand that the omnipotent hand of the
author is revealed and the immersion of the story is weakened. This is the reason behind the use
of deus ex machina as a nearly universal introduction of something unexpected or implausible. If
the hand of the author is seen to be manipulating the characters without story based evidence, the
audience loses its investment in the story. It can feel manipulative for an audience member when
the author’s vision of how the plot should progress gets in the way of believability or coherence.
Humans often behave in relatively predictable ways, even more predictably if you
average out human behavior over an entire audience. Much of a play’s dramatic tension comes
from the assumption that the characters will behave like reasonable humans would behave when
placed in a similar situation. Of course, as in any art form, there are many exceptions to this rule.
Even within Shakespeare’s other works, there are examples of characters whose entire purpose is
to shock the audience with decisions that they could not anticipate. The brutality of Titus
Andronicus stems much from the audience learning, over the course of the play, to what
horrifying lengths will Titus go in order to achieve his goals. The common thread between a
perfectly reasonable, relatable character and Titus Andronicus is that the audience can trust that
whatever they learn about Titus will be useful information for determining how he will behave as
the play continues. Shakespeare spends a great deal of time at the beginning of Titus Andronicus
explaining how violent and dangerous Titus can be, so by the end, the audience can watch Titus
encounter various obstacles and already begin to guess how he might react.
Duke Vincentio in Measure for Measure has a serious challenge to overcome with his
depiction in the play’s text; the information Shakespeare gives the audience about how the Duke
behaves at the beginning of the show does very little to set up how he will behave toward the
end. He starts the play by making carefully planned decisions. He spends all of Act I scene iii
Hansen 12
explaining to Friar Thomas what he intends to do with his disguise, why he has chosen to
disguise himself in the first place, why he put Angelo in charge while he was away, and why he
specifically chose Angelo instead of Escalus as head of state in his absence. At the beginning of
the play, he seems to be a logical, albeit impulsive, leader of a large city-state who makes
unexpected decisions because his personality dictates that he behave this way. The audience is
adept at suspending their disbelief enough to accept the Duke’s explanations. Throughout the
play, the Duke’s behavior becomes less and less justifiable using cold reason and logic.
Beginning at his first entrance, I will give specific examples from Shakespeare’s text that support
the idea that typical justification through tactics and objectives is inadequate for a progressive
portrayal of the Duke.
Chronological Analysis
The Duke decides, at the beginning of the play, that he and his advisors have “let slip” the
statutes and laws that have governed the people of Vienna. In order to fix this lapse in
government strictness, Vincentio decides to put on a disguise and walk amongst the people of
Vienna while his advisors, Escalus and Angelo, are left to enforce the laws in place of the Duke.
Hold therefore, Angelo:--
In our remove be thou at full ourself;
Mortality and mercy in Vienna
Live in thy tongue and heart: old Escalus,
Though first in question, is thy secondary. (Duke Vincentio, I.i.45-49)
Escalus is an experienced politician and advisor. Angelo is known for being overly strict,
following the letter of the law exactly. The Duke wishes to take advantage of Angelo’s reputation
for strict adherence to the law’s letter by letting him rule as a tyrant in order to make the Duke
Hansen 13
appear comparatively lenient when he returns. The Duke knows that he has shirked his punitive
duty as ruler of Vienna, but does not desire to be loathed for removing freedoms the citizen’s
once thought they had. He explains these motivations to Friar Thomas later in the play, and
deliberately hides them from Angelo and Escalus. The Duke also knows that Escalus is the
advisor most fit to rule in the Duke’s absence. Before he summons Angelo to bestow upon him
the responsibilities of the ducal office, he explains to Escalus that he knows and values Escalus’
skills as a ruler and politician, though he must choose Angelo for his replacement. His desire to
let Angelo take the fall for him is the first of very few premeditated explanations for the
decisions he makes throughout the show. The Duke premeditates very little. He explains to Friar
Thomas in detail how and why he wishes to use Angelo as a scapegoat for his own legal apathy,
and as seen above, Escalus is “first in question.” This refers to the Duke’s understanding that
Escalus would be more fit to rule in the Duke’s absence than Angelo, in both skill and seniority.
For this same reason, the Duke does not want to throw Escalus under the proverbial bus.
After the Duke leaves Escalus and Angelo alone to govern the city, Claudio, Isabella’s
brother, is arrested and sentenced to death for having premarital sex with his fiancée. Normally,
this law would not be enforced. The Duke and Escalus understand the spirit of the law, and
would not execute someone for premarital sex, especially if they are scheduled to be married
soon. However, because the Duke is absent and Angelo left in charge of the court, law
enforcement officers are sent to arrest and execute any citizens caught breaking this statute.
The audience learns about Claudio’s sentencing through the other characters’ expressions
of disbelief. Scene ii delivers most of its exposition through the perspectives of various ensemble
or supporting characters. Lucio, Mistress Overdone, Pompey, are each characters who have, in
the past, broken the Duke’s archaic laws at least once or twice, and up until now have not been
Hansen 14
punished for it. When they find out about Claudio’s sentencing, they fret about their own status
and whether they will also be punished.
This reaction to Angelo’s law enforcement policy takes a clear stance on the debate
between the letter of the law and the spirit of the law. Establishing in the play’s initial exposition
that the laws are currently being unfairly enforced sets a political precedent for further events in
the play as well as further events in England, for though the play is set in Vienna it is being
performed in England. The support or opposition to this play’s premise directly correlates to
England’s stance on how their laws should be enforced. At the very least, it correlates to the
theatre-going population’s perspective. More often than not, the general population in any
society tends to support the spirit of the law rather than objective phrasing, simply because it
tends to allow for more personal freedoms when there is room for interpretation and application
on a case-by-case basis. However, the letter of the law can be supported by the common person
when they want to exploit some sort of legal loophole. This does not often apply to the average
citizen. Legal loopholes are most useful when trying to get out of some sort of punishment or to
inflict harm on another party through legal suit. This experience is less common as most average
citizens would not find themselves in the position of arguing their plausible deniability.
Shakespeare wrote for all sorts of theatergoers, whether low or high class. His patrons were
necessarily upper-class and may have more at stake when it comes to sponsoring political plays,
but the average middle to low class audience member would appreciate a scene where average
people take turns onstage complaining about draconian laws made and enforced by the
out-of-touch, and sometimes malevolent, ruling class.
As Shakespeare continues to establish Vienna’s political maelstrom, the Duke dons a
disguise with the help of Friar Thomas and his order of Catholic monks. This scene establishes
Hansen 15
more than a few interpretive possibilities that can be reasonably inferred. Scene iii begins with
the Duke already in conversation with Friar Thomas:
No, holy father; throw away that thought;
Believe not that the dribbling dart of love
Can pierce a complete bosom… (The Duke, I.iii.1-3)
His first lines imply that he and Friar Thomas had already been speaking before the audience
started watching, and all his subsequent lines are either commands, instructions, or explanations.
The Duke says nothing to imply that he understands the consequences or responsibilities of a
clerical disguise. Either the Duke is already familiar with Friar Thomas and forgoes any
formality he may maintain for the Catholic Church and its monastic orders, or, the Duke is
simply ignorant of any ramifications that dressing like a monk and performing Catholic
traditions under false pretenses may provoke. Typically, Catholic Sacraments are required to be
performed by ordained ministers, yet the Duke seems either unaware or uncaring that he does not
possess proper Catholic ordination (Davidson 3).
The Duke may be, as King James I was to the Church of England, a de facto religious
leader from birth due to his station, nobility, and bloodline; however, Shakespeare did not
include any such justification in any of the lines spoken throughout the play, even in passing.
Regarding the typical ‘divine right’ to rule, cited by many monarchies as justification for their
possession of absolute power, the ruling nobilities can often use their divine appointment as
evidence to support their theological claims (Nijman). The Duke, as the monarch of Vienna,
might believe he possesses such a divine authority, which can be seen in the dominant way he
speaks to the ordained clergy of the city. The Duke spends almost the entirety of Act I scene iii
explaining his plan to Friar Thomas with very little apprehension or hesitation:
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...And to behold his sway,
I will, as 'twere a brother of your order,
Visit both prince and people: therefore, I prithee,
Supply me with the habit and instruct me
How I may formally in person bear me
Like a true friar… (The Duke, I.iii.47-52)
If Duke Vincentio were to have the same awareness of the Catholic Church as many did in the
early 17th centuries, he would be keenly aware that without proper ordination, the sacraments he
performs may be done in futility (Merton 150). Assuming the Duke is in fact aware of the
potential clerical consequences of his deception, this disguise demonstrates a conscious disdain
for the Church and its traditions.
The Duke does not appear for the next three scenes. Act I scene iv, Act II scene i, and Act
II scene ii contain the majority of Isabella’s text throughout the show. This is where the audience
sees just how malevolent Angelo has become and the extent to which his corruption has already
reached. The fourth scene of Act I introduces Isabella onstage for the first time. Claudio
previously petitioned Lucio to go find his sister Isabella and ask for her help in avoiding
execution. Scene iv is when Lucio finds Isabella at the nunnery where she lives and tells her
about Claudio’s unfair punishment. This short scene at the end of Act I serves to set up the
information Shakespeare planned to reveal in Act II.
Act II contains the majority of Angelo’s abuses. Scenes i and ii show the audience
examples of Angelo’s harsh laws being executed by the Viennese law enforcement. Scene i
shows a rather lengthy judicial process where Escalus, Angelo, and their political officers
dispense judgment on several “malefactors” brought before them for breaking the Duke’s laws.
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Escalus, the administrative foil to Angelo, speaks plainly and respectfully with the arrested
citizens brought for his judgment, and he ends the scene in conversation with a court Justice.
Mercy is not itself, that oft looks so;
Pardon is still the nurse of second woe:
But yet,--poor Claudio! There is no remedy. (Escalus, II.i.292-294)
Escalus expresses remorse for the punishments he is tasked with carrying out. Though it is not
especially clear what Escalus might mean by “Pardon is still the nurse of second woe” we can
infer that he understands that giving these criminals pardons would encourage them to commit
crimes again. This sentiment gives Angelo the benefit of the doubt, establishing Escalus’
character as practical, reasonable, loyal, and respectful while giving the audience more evidence
to cement Angelo’s treachery.
The second scene in Act II shows Angelo’s first meeting with Isabella. The scene begins
with a conversation between Angelo and the Provost, an officer of Vienna’s punitive system,
where the Provost expresses reluctance to carry out Angelo’s sentences:
...Lest I might be too rash:
Under your good correction, I have seen,
When, after execution, judgment hath
Repented o'er his doom… (Provost; II.ii.13-16)
This continues the expository mission establishing Angelo as an unreasonable ruler and showing
how strict adherence to the letter of the law could easily become quite unjust, and, inevitably,
immoral.
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Isabella arrives shortly after, and quickly begins petitioning Angelo to pardon Claudio for
his assumed crimes. She poses several arguments in favor of his pardon, shifting between moral
and religious arguments, to personal pleas and spiritual bribes.
ISABELLA
Hark how I'll bribe you: good my lord, turn back.
ANGELO
How! bribe me?
ISABELLA
Ay, with such gifts that heaven shall share with you.
LUCIO
[Aside to ISABELLA] You had marr'd all else.
ISABELLA
Not with fond shekels of the tested gold,
Or stones whose rates are either rich or poor
As fancy values them; but with true prayers
That shall be up at heaven and enter there
Ere sun-rise, prayers from preserved souls,
From fasting maids whose minds are dedicate
To nothing temporal. (Measure for Measure, II.ii.177-187)
This final plea at last convinces Angelo to relent, telling her to visit him again the
following day. Shakespeare finishes the scene with an Angelo soliloquy where he
questions who is at fault, him for being tempted, or her for tempting him. This is one of the
first majorly apparent examples of Angelo’s misogyny and abuse. His narcissistic
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ignorance and self-victimization blinds him to the power imbalance between him and
Isabella, which leads to his direct abuse of power and his eventual assault on Isabella.
Act II, scene iii is the first in the play where we see the Duke fully in disguise, both
in appearance and in character. The Duke goes by the alias Friar Lodowick and speaks
with Juliet, Claudio’s fiancée, about Claudio’s impending execution, specifying that both
she and Claudio have committed mutual sins together. Notably, there is one particular line
that gives us clues that point towards the Duke’s true nature, if it can be said that he has
one ‘true’ nature at all.
DUKE VINCENTIO
So then it seems your most offenceful act
Was mutually committed?
JULIET
Mutually.
DUKE VINCENTIO
Then was your sin of heavier kind than his.
JULIET
I do confess it, and repent it, father. (Measure for Measure, II.ii.28-32)
Specifically, “Then was your sin of heavier kind than his” (31). This line carries with it
implications about the Duke’s view of women and the Church. Though he seems to think
himself superior to the Catholic Church, enough to practice clerical rites under false
pretenses, he takes an extra full line to specify that though Juliet and Claudio have both
committed the sin of fornicating out of wedlock, Juliet’s participation in this sinful act is
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somehow more meaningful or more severe than Claudio’s. This misogynistic view of
sexual sins may stem from a religious point of view.
Perhaps Shakespeare may be implying something about Catholicism and may in
fact be aware of the problematic view this presents, or, Shakespeare may be unaware of the
problems with this viewpoint and might have written this line as some sort of common
understanding with the audience. Between Shakespeare’s depiction of Catholic traditions,
his self-reliant female characters, and the reputation of the Catholic Church at the time, it
is more likely that the Duke’s insistence that Juliet’s sin is ‘heavier’ than Claudio’s is a
criticism of the Church itself.
The rest of scene iii communicates exposition very quickly, telling Juliet that
Claudio is sentenced to death before offering a short blessing and a quick exit. The Duke
does not spend much time conversing with Juliet. As he is in disguise at the time, he may
be reluctant to get too closely involved in any of the citizen’s lives, though that does
change quite quickly once we reach Act III. The Duke merely exists and observes until he
is moved to act. This scene with Juliet does not move the Duke to act, so he abstains. It is
unclear as of yet whether he abstains from helping Juliet because he does not possess the
full context of Claudio’s punishment, though the Provost does inform the Duke why Juliet
is so sad and why Claudio is being executed. The Duke does not seem to be moved by this
injustice until later in the play.
Act II, scene iv is perhaps the most famous in Measure for Measure, and in this the
Duke does not make an appearance. This scene contains the confrontation between Angelo
and Isabella where Angelo blackmails Isabella, threatening her with her brother’s
execution. I am endeavoring in this thesis to explore the Duke’s behavior, so I will not
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remain long within this scene, however, it is important to take note: the actions in this
scene mark a significant turning point in audience sensibilities. When Angelo threatens
Isabella, blackmailing her to perform sexual acts to which she would not otherwise
consent, the divide between 17th century and modern audiences is arguably at its widest.
Contemporary awareness of patriarchal abuses reframes this scene with an irretrievably
bleak perspective. The comedic aspects of the play begin to dwindle in potency after this
moment. It becomes difficult to reconcile the plights of a Duke who placed Angelo in the
position of power where he can enact such abuses, especially when he is made aware of
Angelo’s crimes and does not step in to remove him from power. Because of this scene’s
pivotal role within the larger story of the play, it will continue to stay relevant as the
Duke’s behavioral analysis continues. One note regarding Act II scene iv that is relevant to
my exploration of the Duke is: if this play was intended to criticize the Catholic Church or
tyrannical rulers in general, this scene presents a foil to the Duke, framing Angelo as this
paragon of malevolence, though crucially, it was the Duke that gave Angelo the power that
he abuses. When made aware of such abuses, the Duke abstained from interfering. By
excluding the Duke from the events that unfold in Act II scene iv, Shakespeare both
criticizes the Viennese theocracy and foreshadows the Duke’s eventual heel-turn abuse of
power in Act V.
Beginning Act III, The Duke visits Claudio in prison, again disguised as Friar
Lodowick, where he attempts to comfort Claudio and spiritually prepare him for death.
Be absolute for death; either death or life
Shall thereby be the sweeter… (The Duke, III.i.5-6)
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His preparatory speech to Claudio, nearly forty lines long, begins on the fifth line of the
scene. Act III barely begins before the Duke waxes poetic about easing one’s mind for
execution.
A brief editorialization before the analysis of this speech begins: If we
recontextualize the speech, and by extension the scene, into a 21st century American
perspective, the scene takes on a macabre sense of irony. Imagine, instead of a Duke
disguised as a friar, a senator disguised as a psychologist attempting to convince a
condemned inmate to gracefully accept his execution with passive satisfaction. The
ultimately privileged and politically untouchable Duke condescends to the unjustly
punished Claudio about blindly embracing this injustice. In a modern context, this kind of
treatment would be grounds for revolution. With the gap between the powerful aristocracy
and average middle-class citizens widening every year, watching the Duke of Vienna allow
his corrupt advisor to rule with impunity, then attempt to persuade the unfairly condemned
to grin and bear it is unforgivable. Shakespeare’s acknowledgement of this kind of
privilege is necessarily limited, both by his 16th-17th century awareness of social justice,
and because his ability to produce and perform his plays was directly subsidized by the
ruling class. Though his writing bears masterful strokes of originality and revolution,
everything he wrote and produced still must bear the aristocratic seal of approval.
With that said, the Duke spends nearly thirty lines convincing Claudio that
execution would not be so bad. The Duke describes life with the privileged nihilism of a
colonial aristocrat looking at the lives of those they have been abusing, and telling them
they would be better off dead than living the low quality lives as they are destined. The
Duke begins his speech by comparing Life to a fleeting moment, a brief and fickle
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temporary reality, insignificant in the infinite expanse of humanity, and that life inevitably
ends with death, so whether death arrives today or tomorrow or in one hundred years,
death will eventually come, so why wait:
... merely, thou art death's fool;
For him thou labour'st by thy flight to shun
And yet runn'st toward him still. (The Duke, III.i.11-13)
The philosophical idea that human life ends with death and thus removes all meaning and
significance to the experiences one has before death, is unoriginal and porous, and Claudio
seems to be unconvinced by this argument. Whether or not Claudio is in fact convinced
seems to have little effect on the Duke as he continues making further and varied
arguments in quick succession.
In our production of Measure for Measure, Professor Jerry McGonigle, our
director, did not express any desire to see Claudio convinced of the Duke’s arguments this
early in the speech. This interpretation holds strongest against critical scrutiny, as the
argument for futility stemming from the eventual annihilation of a single human’s life
disregards the experiences one has throughout one’s life. The Duke makes this first
argument quickly and changes tactics after nine lines.
His next argument regards the practical continuation of human life as “base” and
“not noble.”
... Thou art not noble;
For all the accommodations that thou bear'st
Are nursed by baseness… (The Duke, III.i.13-15)
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Supposedly, the Duke is referring to the “base” needs of humanity that are often
considered taboo: digestion, medicine, health, reproduction. Many of the basic needs of
humanity can be upsetting when viewed up close. Not all of life can be reduced to the
cleanest, most perfect image of the idyllic human who produces no waste, reproduces
asexually, never gets injured, never tires, never gets angry, never grows old. There are
many things in life that seem unpleasant when taken out of context, and that is exactly
where the Duke runs afoul in his rhetoric. This argument suggests that the bad, base, or
undesirable necessities of life outweigh all the good one can potentially experience. Taken
out of context, removed from anything that may make life valuable, the bad things would
of course outweigh the good. The judge is moving the goalpost. Then the Duke offers
another three line argument, as soon as the previous one ends, where he describes Life as:
... Thou'rt by no means valiant;
For thou dost fear the soft and tender fork
Of a poor worm… (The Duke, III.i.15-17)
This argument is most likely to be made in jest, as the diet of worms is not usually
something people think of when they come up with reasons why they fear death.
Additionally, the fear of death does not inherently remove one’s valiance. To imply that
Life is not worth living because humanity behaves like cowards for fearing death simply
assumes that feeling fear itself is reason enough to wish for death.
Another potentially humorous argument relates death with sleep, claiming that the
best way to rest oneself is by sleeping, and though humans often seek out more rest and
more sleep, that death is “no more” than sleep.
...Thy best of rest is sleep,
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And that thou oft provokest; yet grossly fear'st
Thy death, which is no more… (The Duke, III.i.18-20)
The rest of the speech contains five separate arguments for why Claudio should
embrace the possibility of execution, or at least, face the imminent prospect of death with
grace and without fear. Each of the five remaining arguments talk specifically about what
life is not. The Duke describes attributes of existence that normal life apparently does not
possess, and uses each one as a reason not to fear death.
... Thou art not thyself;
For thou exist'st on many a thousand grains
That issue out of dust… (The Duke, III.i.20-22)
This argument could be referring to the Earth itself, made of dirt, stone, dust, maybe
stardust. In the twenty-first century scientific perspective, describing humanity as being
made out of star-dust has become almost a cliche. We have to remember that the chemical
makeup of stars was not rigorously discovered until Dr. Cecilia Payne wrote her thesis on
astronomical spectroscopy in 1925 (Soter). Shakespeare made many references to stars
throughout his work, however; the “thousand grains” the Duke mentions may be simply
referring to dirt or soil, general detritus. In our production, we allowed the Duke to use
“dust” to refer to the Earth itself, though there can be innumerable interpretations of this
sort of poetry. How the Duke decides that life is worth less because it exists on top of dust
and dirt is unclear.
… Happy thou art not;
For what thou hast not, still thou strivest to get,
And what thou hast, forget'st… (The Duke, III.i.22-24)
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This argument is one of the Duke’s strongest thus far. An emotional appeal regarding the
reliable unpleasantness of life could be stronger evidence upon which to build a case that
life is not worth living. A person’s emotional experience is entirely internal, and bringing
attention to the lack of happiness in Claudio’s life would certainly incite a desire for relief.
The Duke’s reason for Life’s unhappiness is somewhat metaphorical, though on a grander
scale, very relatable to most people. The constant desire for more, and the lack of gratitude
for what we have, whether that be material possessions or emotional wellbeing, creates a
great deal of unhappiness in many people. The dissatisfaction with one’s state of life is a
common experience, especially for those people experiencing imprisonment and imminent
execution.
However sound his argument may be, the Duke is ultimately responsible for the
unhappiness that Claudio is experiencing at the time of this speech. Though Claudio does
not know it, the Duke’s hypocrisy shines bright through dramatic irony. Vienna’s laws, put
in place by the Duke and knowingly enforced by the Duke’s advisor, have led to Claudio’s
sentencing. The Duke, in full awareness, manipulates Claudio using the unpleasant
emotions he caused to explain why Claudio shouldn’t fear death.
...Thou art not certain;
For thy complexion shifts to strange effects,
After the moon… (The Duke, III.i.24-26)
This argument, like the previous point regarding Life’s valiance, assumes that ‘certainty’ is
a virtue that Life should display. One could just as easily make the same argument for
Life’s un-certainty, that for Life to be certain would be boring and predictable. The Duke
gives little evidence as to why certainty is a desirable attribute for a fruitful life.
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… If thou art rich, thou'rt poor;
For, like an ass whose back with ingots bows,
Thou bear's thy heavy riches but a journey,
And death unloads thee… (The Duke, III.i.26-29)
Another argument made by the richest man in Vienna, that riches make one’s life worse. It
may be true that accumulating wealth does not guarantee satisfaction and happiness;
however, there are many ways in which poverty can hinder a person’s happiness, and
telling those condemned to death that they are better off with less is a short path to
exploitation and deceit.
... Friend hast thou none;
For thine own bowels, which do call thee sire,
The mere effusion of thy proper loins,
Do curse the gout, serpigo, and the rheum,
For ending thee no sooner… (The Duke, III.i.29-33)
The Duke equates a person’s bowels to their closest friends. At the very least, he
personifies one’s bowels as a group of subordinates who throw curses at the person within
whom they live, curses born out of the common afflictions obtained as humans age.
... Thou hast nor youth nor age,
But, as it were, an after-dinner's sleep,
Dreaming on both; for all thy blessed youth
Becomes as aged, and doth beg the alms
Of palsied eld;... (The Duke, III.i.34-38)
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This argument is notably vague, beginning with “Thou hast nor youth nor age,” but then
continues to describe how “all thy blessed youth becomes as aged…” As the Duke nears
the end of his speech, perhaps he begins to wax poetic, finding his footing in the clerical
disguise of Friar Lodowick.
... and when thou art old and rich,
Thou hast neither heat, affection, limb, nor beauty,
To make thy riches pleasant… (The Duke, III.i.38-40)
This final argument simply presents aging as unpleasant enough to overshadow the
benefits of the riches one has obtained through years of existence. The Duke ends his
speech by asking “What’s yet in this that bears the name of Life?” After describing all
these attributes of human existence, he asks if one could call this existence “life” with
sound mind after hearing all his descriptions, primarily of all the negative attributes of
Life.
Understandably, in order to maintain his disguise, the Duke must speak to
condemned prisoners as if he had no influence over the law. Holy people, even today, are
often brought to prisoners who are facing execution to perform whatever religious rites
they might require before they are killed. Notably, the Duke does not perform any religious
rites in front of Claudio, nor does he mention the possibility of a joyful afterlife when
convincing Claudio to relinquish his fear of death. His arguments are almost entirely
negative. At least regarding Life itself, the Duke seems to form almost all of his arguments
around the premise that Life would not be worth living if his point were true. These points
may be technically plausible, though they are riddled with logical cracks and rhetorical
fallacies.
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Indeed, this nihilistic view of the arguments made by the Duke could always be
distilled down to poetry. Perhaps Shakespeare simply needed a few more words to fill the
proper syllable count, and thus artificial arguments were born, and proper cohesive
rhetoric is bent to fit the poetic structure. Regardless, utilizing the play’s text that we have
access to, we can make inferences about the Duke’s philosophical perspective and perform
the character accordingly.
Quickly after the Duke finished speaking with Claudio, Isabella comes into the
prison to speak with him, and the Duke decides to eavesdrop on their conversation. This
conversation shows Isabella’s dedication to her vows as she tells her brother the truth of
his condemnation, including that he might be saved if she sleeps with Angelo. This scene
includes the famous speech beginning with “Ay, but to die, and go we know not where.”
Claudio, seemingly moved by the Duke’s arguments, quickly changes his desires back to
self-preservation when he is provided an avenue of release, even at his sister’s expense.
As with Angelo, and his famous speeches earlier in the play, this scene and
interaction between Claudio and Isabella could merit their own scholastic pursuits. For this
exploration, we need only remember that the Duke is witness to this interaction between
Isabella, and that each of their respective please towards one another, Isabella’s to Claudio
asking for his acceptance of death, and Claudio’s to Isabella asking for her to go through
with Angelo’s demands, serve to change the heart of Duke Vincentio rather than each
other’s.
Act III scene i is the first time the Duke learns of Angelo’s abuses. Up until this
moment, he assumed that Angelo would uphold the laws with draconian strictness. His
assumptions extended to Angelo as well, thinking that Angelo would not make himself a
Hansen 30
hypocrite by upholding the laws for all Viennese citizens while leaving himself exempt.
While observing the conversation between Claudio and Isabella, the Duke learns that
Angelo has made himself a hypocrite and has abused the power that the Duke gave him.
Before Isabella leaves the prison, the Duke re-enters the conversation between her
and Claudio.
Might you dispense with your leisure, I would by and
by have some speech with you: the satisfaction I
would require is likewise your own benefit. (The Duke, III.i.173-175)
The Duke then speaks with Claudio and Isabella individually. He speaks with Claudio
first, directly refuting Isabella’s claims. The Duke, in disguise as a friar, lies directly to
Claudio and Isabella. Yet another example of his lack of adherence to the religious
traditions of the Catholic Church. He lies to Claudio about Angelo’s intentions, saying that
he was just testing Isabella’s dedication to her vows, and she has passed the test by
refusing him. The Duke lies to Claudio, refutes Isabella, and takes away any chance of
salvation that Claudio may have thought he had.
Angelo had never the purpose to
corrupt her; only he hath made an essay of her
virtue to practise his judgment with the disposition
of natures: she, having the truth of honour in her,
hath made him that gracious denial which he is most
glad to receive. I am confessor to Angelo, and I
know this to be true; therefore prepare yourself to
Death:... (The Duke, III.i.182-189)
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Claudio trusts the Duke immediately, believing him to be adhering to a monk’s typical
vows against the sin of lying. The Duke destroys his hope of salvation and expels him
from the room where they had been conversing. He then begins to speak with Isabella,
where he immediately starts formulating a plan to save Claudio that does not require her to
comply with Angelo’s abuses.
Therefore fasten your ear on my
advisings: to the love I have in doing good a
remedy presents itself… (The Duke, III.i.220-222)
The Duke explains his convoluted plan to switch Isabella with Mariana in the dead of
night, just before the act of fornication takes place. Mariana, the estranged fiancée to
Angelo, wishes to reunite with her betrothed and would willingly sleep with him. Angelo,
mistaking Mariana for Isabella, would free Claudio, and Isabella would not have to break
any of her vows of chastity.
This pivotal moment in the play lines up with a key checkpoint in the Duke’s
character. To the audience, and upon first read, the Duke’s attempt to save Isabella through
deceit seems like genuine altruism. The Duke himself seems to believe in the benevolence
of his efforts. However, the Duke put these laws into place himself, and he put Angelo in
charge of enforcing them. If he truly wanted to help Isabella and Claudio, he could easily
solve these problems by removing his disguise and absolving Claudio with the ultimate
authority he still carries.
The Duke’s attempt to aid Isabella and Claudio comes with its own asterisks and
agendas. He is only willing to help as long as he can remain in disguise. He still wishes to
remain anonymous, not because it allows him to govern more effectively, but so he can
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avoid bearing the responsibility of imperfect governance. The retention of his disguise is
not philanthropy. It is, in fact, entirely self-serving. His disguise benefits no one but
himself, and in many ways, remaining in disguise causes very real harm to the citizen’s
lives. Several citizens are imprisoned and executed before the Duke reveals himself to the
public again.
This discussion with Isabella and Claudio takes on a more tragic odor if the
audience is made aware that the Duke is, deliberately or not, making things more difficult
for Isabella and Claudio. Duke Vincentio may not be specifically aware that he is causing
such unnecessary distress, but nonetheless, he bears the power and, by extension, the
responsibility for the consequences of his decisions.
The Duke’s treatment of the disenfranchised citizens of Vienna displays an
apparent disregard for both the wellbeing of the general populace and the traditions of the
religion he claims to practice. Not only does he lie to Claudio and Isabella while dressed as
a holy man, asks Isabella to deceive Angelo putting herself in danger and breaking her
vows of honesty, and refuses to remove his disguise for fear of responsibility, but he does
all of this with the unflappable ignorance of the privileged nobility. Act III, scene i, ends
with Isabella agreeing to go along with the Duke’s plan to trick Angelo, and the Duke
leaving to tell Mariana about the plan.
Scene ii follows just outside the prison as the Duke is leaving to visit Mariana.
Existing partially for comedic relief, the Duke meets Elbow, the moronic constable, and
Lucio, the foppish fantastic, outside of the prison. Elbow and Lucio give the Duke
information about the changes Vienna has experienced since the Duke left, and Lucio
specifically reveals to the Duke information about how he is perceived by the common
Hansen 33
populace. This information represents one of the reasons why the Duke donned his
monastic disguise in the first place. In Act I scene iii, the Duke expresses his desire to
“visit both prince and people,” and in Act III he gets his wish by hearing from Lucio how
the Duke is viewed without the formalities and filtration that would be present were he not
in disguise.
Act IV begins at St. Luke’s, the religious institution where Mariana, Angelo’s
estranged fiancée, is living. The Duke and Isabella inform Mariana of their plan to deceive
Angelo and Mariana eventually agrees. Again, the Duke does not remove his disguise. At
this point, he may think he has come too far to reveal himself even though it would quickly
solve the problems. This is only speculation as the Duke never acknowledges, at any point
in the duration of the play, that all of this conflict could have been avoided if he had
revealed himself and pardoned all those prisoners who he discovered to be punished
unfairly. Additionally, this unfair treatment of the population was entirely the purpose of
his flight from court. The Duke donned a disguise in order to leave Angelo in charge of
dispensing aggressive punishment, so that the Duke could return and be viewed as
benevolent and lenient without being held responsible for the mistreatment of the Viennese
populace. Without Angelo’s strict adherence to the letter of the law, the Duke would not be
able to return with the applause and relief that he hoped for. His undermining of Angelo’s
punitive policies, undermines his own legal goals. The Duke does not think strategically,
does not plan very far in advance, or if he does, his strategies begin and end with solving
the problems immediately in front of him. He does very little to prevent any other citizens
from being unfairly punished. Mistress Overdone, a businesswoman who runs a brothel in
the city, has her business shut down by Angelo and his constables. The Duke does not
Hansen 34
actively help Mistress Overdone, but he does choose to help Claudio and Isabella. Why?
That happens to be the question.
Between scene i and scene ii in Act IV, the plan to trick Angelo is put into action,
and apparently successful. Isabella agrees to sleep with Angelo, Mariana switches with
Isabella without being discovered, and the Duke now expects Claudio’s pardon. In Act IV
scene ii, the Duke comes to the prison once again, asking the Provost whether they have
received any notice from Angelo regarding Claudio’s pardon. The Provost had not heard
anything prior to the Duke’s arrival; however, in the middle of the scene, Angelo’s
messenger arrives bearing news that Claudio is not in fact pardoned, but must be executed
even sooner than expected.
The Duke is then met with the failure of his plan. With Angelo’s treachery made
even more plain, he still does not remove his disguise. Shakespeare’s text only includes the
Duke producing a seal and signature from the Duke, and showing it to the Provost. Our
production involved a full identity reveal implied by the text though not definitively
spelled out.
Look you, sir, here is the hand and seal of the
Duke:... (The Duke, IV.ii.208-209)
This is enough for the Provost to disobey Angelo’s orders. The following scene, Act IV,
scene iii, presents a method of saving Claudio from death seemingly from thin air. As the
Duke confronts Barnadine, a condemned man, to coerce him into coming willingly to his
own execution, the Provost enters the scene and informs the Duke that a prisoner had just
died who just happened to look just like Claudio.
…Here in the prison, father,
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There died this morning of a cruel fever
One Ragozine, a most notorious pirate,
A man of Claudio's years; his beard and head
Just of his colour… (Provost, IV.iii.74-78)
This scene presents an apparent implementation of the contemporary interpretation of deus
ex machina, a relatively rare occurrence in Shakespeare’s canon, where the conflict
surrounding the primary character is resolved through artificial interference by the author
and not by logical consequences of the character’s actions. Out of nowhere, due in no part
to the Duke’s actions, his problems are solved, and he is not motivated to remove his
disguise nor take responsibility for the cultural turmoil into which his legal ineptitude has
plunged the citizens of Vienna. He accepts this solution with gratitude and commands the
Provost to carry out the deception.
The very next line, proceeding after the Provost’s exit, is Isabella’s as she enters the
scene to ask if Claudio has yet been pardoned. The Duke decides not to tell her that he has
found a way to pardon Claudio, and instead retains the information to reveal to her “when
least expected.”
The tongue of Isabel. She's come to know
If yet her brother's pardon be come hither:
But I will keep her ignorant of her good,
To make her heavenly comforts of despair,
When it is least expected. (The Duke, IV.iii.115-119)
He knowingly keeps the knowledge of her brother’s salvation from her, for seemingly no
reason other than “to make heavenly comforts of despair, when least expected.” This
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moment, perhaps second only to the Duke’s marriage proposal in Act V, most displays the
Duke’s impulsiveness and narcissism. The Duke continues to tell Isabella that their plan
failed, and her brother is still condemned to die. The callous approach he takes to revealing
this information furthers the idea that the Duke thinks very little of anyone but himself. He
dismisses Isabella with even more instructions to carry a letter to another friar where she
will be then able to accuse Angelo of the crimes he has committed. Lucio finishes the
scene with more jokes and a sympathetic word for Isabella.
The final scenes in Act IV, scenes iv, v, and vi, are short and serve as transitional
exposition from the ‘deus ex machina’-style end of Act IV scene iii. Angelo, the Duke, and
Isabella prepare for the return of the Duke, sans disguise.
Act V, scene i, the final and longest scene in the play, and the only scene in Act V,
encompasses the trial and sentencing of Angelo, along with the witnessed promises of
marriage between Angelo and Mariana, Lucio and the prostitute Kate Keepdown, and
finally Isabella and the Duke. The triple marriages working in tandem with the sentencing
of Angelo display many of the necessary characteristics of a classic Shakespearean
comedy. Measure for Measure is included among Shakespeare’s other comedies in the
publishing of the First Folio. However, as modern theatrical sensibilities have changed
significantly over the past four hundred years, the play has turned away from a simple
comedic categorization. This is one of many reasons why Measure for Measure is
considered to be a ‘problem play’ in the eyes of modern theatrical critics. The somber
gravity of the play’s content, the weak and futile indictment of Angelo, and the unwilling
engagements in the play’s final scene serve to undermine its label as a comedy and create
interpretive problems in the eyes of both theatrical practitioners and modern audiences.
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The Duke appeared at the gates of Vienna without his disguise, greeting Angelo
and Escalus. Almost immediately Isabella is brought to the Duke where she formally
accuses Angelo of his crimes, “Most strange, but yet most truly, will I speak” (Isabella,
V.i.42). Through the course of this scene, words and jokes are exchanged between the
Duke and the gathered cast of characters. Most of the humor is derived from the audience’s
knowledge of the Duke’s disguise. Dramatic irony serves to propel the beginning of this
scene forward as each character comes forward to make their case. Isabella speaks
honestly, and the audience solidifies their already confirmed knowledge that Isabella is
completely virtuous and true to her word. Lucio, who, up to this point, has been making
jokes at the Duke’s expense to the disguised Duke, tells humorous lies to the now revealed
Duke. Mariana then gets an opportunity to defend herself and reveal that she was once
engaged to Angelo. Almost all of this information, the Duke already knows. The majority
of this public trial is a charade, made more theatrical by the Duke’s ignorant pretense.
An important thing to observe when reading or performing this scene is the way the
Duke treats the female characters versus the male characters. When Isabella and Mariana
speak, the Duke, now out of his disguise, refutes and belittles each of them. He accuses
them of lying and denies their claims in public, even though he was responsible for their
presence at this public trial in the first place. The Duke takes Angelo’s side and gives him
the power to punish the women who have accused him of the crimes the Duke knows he
committed.
…Ay, with my heart
And punish them to your height of pleasure.
Thou foolish friar, and thou pernicious woman,
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Compact with her that's gone,... (The Duke, V.i.272-275)
The Duke continues to deceive his subjects and advisors even when outside of his
disguise. He has all the necessary power and information to end this suffering and put
things right, but instead he decides to put on a performance and prolong the charade until
he is eventually revealed by force when Lucio removes the Duke’s hood.
Only when he is forcibly removed from his disguise does the Duke begin to dole
out pardons and punishments as he sees fit. He pardons the Provost and Barnadine. He also
pardons Lucio, though he does force Lucio to marry the prostitute whose child he
conceived. The Duke pardons Claudio for the crimes he was accused of, and reveals him
to Isabella almost fifty lines from the play’s end. Isabella experiences all the events of this
supposed ‘comedy’ believing that her brother has been executed. Mariana is given Angelo
as a husband, even though he committed the crime of fornication out of wedlock and
should be put to death by his own laws. Angelo does not even receive imprisonment, he is
told to marry Mariana as his only punishment: a grossly misogynistic view of marriage and
punishment.
Finally, the Duke proposes marriage to Isabella, though his proposal is much more
of a command than a request:
...and, for your lovely sake,
Give me your hand and say you will be mine.
He is my brother too… (The Duke, V.i.563-565)
Isabella is given no lines to reply to this engagement. Whatever she may be experiencing,
whether it be joy at the revelation of her brother’s safety and this surprise engagement to
royalty, or grief at the loss of her autonomy and the destruction of her pursuit of catholic
Hansen 39
sisterhood, Shakespeare denies her the chance to express it to the Duke and to the audience
themselves. The Duke wraps up the play by distributing punishments and boons to those
that he believes deserves them. There are very few lines given in response to the Duke’s
proclamation before the play ends.
In the play’s final moments, the Duke speaks directly to Isabella:
…Dear Isabel,
I have a motion much imports your good;
Whereto if you'll a willing ear incline,
What's mine is yours and what is yours is mine.
So, bring us to our palace; where we'll show
What's yet behind, that's meet you all should know. (The Duke, V.i.608-613)
The play ends with a declaration by the Duke, essentially abducting Isabella, offering her
no chance to respond, and ending the story with this hyper-authoritarian display of
absolute unchecked power. Scholars and theatre practitioners over the centuries have
spoken on this play’s ending as artistic and social sensibilities change. The years of
separation between contemporary audiences and Shakespeare’s audiences prevents us from
truly knowing how this story would have been received when it was written. However, the
text that survives to today possesses an unsatisfying ending that strips every female
character of their autonomy and self-expression. The play itself does not give the female
characters any opportunity to voice their opinion on the Duke’s decision. Perhaps, when
the play was first performed, this would have been accepted as normal. The ending
becomes much more satisfying assuming the apparent marginalization of all the female
characters in the play was not seen as morally distressing by Shakespeare’s audiences.
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However, today the ending of Measure for Measure is extremely distressing and
presents a very unsatisfying conclusion to a play that has been categorized as a Comedy.
The Duke, up until this point, has been endeavoring to save Claudio and prevent Isabella
from needing to break her vows of chastity. The audience has only seen the Duke working
towards the resolution of the problems that Angelo caused. The Duke also caused these
problems by giving Angelo unchecked authority and doing nothing when informed about
Angelo’s abuses.
Most audiences, unfortunately, will not have read this thesis, and it would take a
keen audience member (or a particularly pointed production) to show the Duke as the
villain that he is from the very beginning of the play. Many of the main problems with the
Duke’s behavior arise when you analyze how he goes about resolving the issues he
encounters. When viewing the play live, and especially for the first time, it can be difficult
to discern exactly why the Duke is so problematic. Only at the end do modern audiences
receive this emotional rug-pull as the Duke denies Isabella the release and resolution for
which she has been fighting for the duration of the play. The Duke commands her to marry
him and she is given no opportunity to respond. Her station as a citizen of Vienna means
that she cannot deny the Duke anything for fear of royal retaliation.
This is the final example of the Duke’s complete narcissism and ignorance. He
spends the entire play acting only when he feels personally moved to do so, and every
action he takes is not in service of those around him, but in service of himself. Even when
attempting to free Claudio from unjust execution, his tactics are always self-serving. He
refuses to remove his disguise until he is met with the failure of his plans and danger of
Claudio’s immediate execution. He denies Isabella the knowledge of her brother’s safety,
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and he denies her the freedom to live her life the way she chose before the events of the
play derailed her goals.
The Duke acts as the play’s protagonist only in the sense that he is attempting to
solve the conflict that immediately presents itself to the Duke and to the audience. He is a
protagonist in literary structure only. Morally, ethically, and realistically the Duke is a
self-serving despot who takes very little time to consider the consequences of his actions
beyond what they will immediately do for him.
The play Measure for Measure is no longer a comedy. It is indeed a problem play,
showcasing not a humorous story with a satisfying ending, but a deeply disturbing
portrayal of unchecked patriarchal power where narcissistic leaders are viewed as
philanthropic heroes in spite of their self-serving intentions and exclusively immediate
awareness.
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Chapter 3: Character Interpretation and Methodology
The decision whether an actor should deliberately attempt to justify the Duke’s actions
serves as the primary focus of this thesis. Actors are often asked to justify their actions, to
research why their characters do what they do. The Duke, when examined, does not seem to have
clear reasons why he makes the decisions that he does. The clearest reason seems to be: in the
moment of the scene, experiencing the events as they happen, the Duke feels an impulse of
sympathy towards those immediately in front of him, and acts upon it. He does not consider
whether there may be a more efficient path forward, or whether he could potentially use his
power to help not just Claudio and Isabella, but all supposed criminals who would be punished
unfairly. He overhears the plight of Isabella and Claudio, and only then feels moved to help
them, which he then attempts to do. Unfortunately, the way he chooses to help is notably
convoluted, risky, and self-serving, which only supports the claim that the Duke is acting
primarily upon instinct, improvising his way through the events in the play. An actor wishing to
justify the Duke’s actions may be better off trying to predict the roll of a die, or to preemptively
determine which card will be pulled next from a shuffled deck of cards. The Duke acts on
impulse and immediacy, causing more chaos and suffering than necessary in most situations. It is
not until Act V when he finally reveals himself, solving problems in ways that could have been
enacted much sooner, had he the awareness and forethought to do so.
In nearly every production of any of Shakespeare’s plays, the director acts as an
interpretive compass for the show’s design and performance concepts. In our production of
Measure for Measure, the director Professor McGonigle served not only as compass for our
Hansen 43
performance concept, but as a creative guide rail, ushering my own slightly askew attempts at
justification towards a respectful and impactful interpretation of the Duke.
I began the rehearsal process having read the play with the intent of figuring out why the
Duke does what he does. This step is common amongst actors, as the ‘why’ of any character’s
actions serves as one of the first anchors around which an actor can build their characterization.
Finding a practical justification within the text quickly revealed itself to be a futile search. The
Duke rarely explains his actions. He only outlines his logical decision patterns in Act I scene iii,
during his conversation with Friar Thomas. Even during the public trial he holds in Act V, he
feigns ignorance for most of the scene only revealing himself when Lucio forcibly removes his
disguise. He occasionally explains himself in brief terms, as in the moment outlined in the
previous chapter:
But I will keep her ignorant of her good
To make her heavenly comforts of despair
When it is least expected. (The Duke, IV.iii.17-19)
The reasoning he presents here as evidence for keeping the news of Claudio’s salvation from
Isabella is not elaborated upon anywhere else, and the assumption that keeping this information
from Isabella will provide her more heavenly comforts later on is not only ignorant and false, but
also morally reprehensible.
As a monarch, the Duke seems to feel little need to explain the reasoning behind his
actions, and legally he may have the right to retain such explanations. The explanations provided
in the text are thin and brief at best, and none of them do much to address why he makes the
decision to betroth himself to Isabella at the end of the play. With this ethereal information and
dearth of logic, how would an actor approach justifying the character’s decisions? When picking
Hansen 44
out objectives and tactics, as many actors are instructed to do, the Duke makes it extremely
difficult to build a character off of evidence found in the text. I eventually decided to leave the
text behind and craft my own justification based on observed behaviors and potential
possibilities that might create a more satisfying ending. This kind of blind fabrication can be
dangerous as an actor because it toes the line between performer and playwright in ways that can
be harmful to the overall process, as I will eventually discover.
The initial justification I crafted that held the most water in my mind was: perhaps the
Duke had no interest in marriage, either because of sexual preference, or simple indifference to
the religious institution of matrimony. This disinterest in marriage helped most to justify the
ending of the play. Perhaps he and Isabella had secretly colluded to stage this public trial where
she could become engaged to the Duke in front of the most important citizens of Vienna, then
both the Duke and Isabella would be able to pretend to live a joint life while secretly living their
marriage free lives relatively undisturbed by the greater populace.
Two key lines in Shakespeare’s text supported this justification of the Duke’s distaste for
marriage. The first is:
No, holy father; throw away that thought;
Believe not that the dribbling dart of love
Can pierce a complete bosom. (The Duke, I.iii.1-3)
In Act I, scene iii, The Duke is explaining to Friar Thomas why he intends to disguise himself.
The line above opens the scene, mid conversation, as if Friar Thomas had just asked the Duke if
he intends to disguise himself in pursuit of a romantic encounter of some kind. The Duke quickly
denies any possibility of love being the motivator for his actions.
The second excerpt that supports the Duke’s indifference towards marriage is:
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I never heard the absent duke much detected for
women; he was not inclined that way. (The Duke, III.ii.123-124)
In Act III, scene ii, the Duke defends himself against Lucio’s accusations while in disguise as a
Friar. Lucio makes fallacious claims about the Duke, and in response, the Duke denies his own
interest in women.
Before rehearsals began, this was the most appealing evidence for justifying the Duke’s
actions in a way that would make the ending at least somewhat satisfying to myself if not to the
audience. I did not take into account the creative vision of the director, and I knew that it might
not actually make logical sense even if it were to be implemented once rehearsals began. After
going through the entire process of putting on this play, it is clear to me now how this kind of
artifice can be dangerous when rewriting character motivations. I cannot entirely blame the
younger, more naive version of myself. Curiosity is one of my favorite aspects in other actors
and creatives, and the desire to supplement a narrative with original takes is something I wish
more people would be willing to attempt. However, this desire to artificially create a satisfying
ending could have undermined the end result of the show, and Professor McGonigle holds the
credit for guiding me back into an appropriate interpretation of the Duke after I pitched my initial
ideas.
Professor McGonigle told me not to think too much about justification too early in the
process, especially with regard to the Duke. Eventually we abandoned the pursuit of the Duke
pre-planning his decisions in favor of leaning towards his narcissistic improvisation. My
approach to the Duke creates more opportunities for the rug to be pulled out from under the
audience at the end, and it aligns more closely with the text itself.
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When poring through the text for evidence, I was so focused on finding a sentence or two
that speaks the Duke’s thoughts in reality, that I neglected to realize, the absence of justification
is evidence against my motivations. The lack of justification is a character trait with just as much
practical potency as any perfect phrase that lays out exactly what the Duke was thinking. I
looked over the possibility that no evidence is noteworthy in and of itself. I found myself in an
analytical feedback loop, looking for evidence to support a hypothesis I had already made while
ignoring the clues toward a more progressive and interesting conclusion.
Playing the Duke as an ignorant despot may not create a satisfying ending, but it would
be much less artificial. Additionally, in the end, the story is not about the Duke moving the plot
forward as a hero. The play, in its modern context, carries with it a more significant story about
the abuse of power by unchecked men in a corrupt patriarchal monarchy. Throughout the play,
the Duke makes snap decisions without considering their consequences. He improvises his way
through life-threatening situations, coming up with convoluted solutions to problems, often made
manifest by the consequences of his own previously improvised decisions, resulting in an
unfortunate Monkey’s Paw situation where the solution creates more problems than it resolves.
The idea that, only towards the end, he would craft a secret plan with Isabella to protect them
both from marriage is a bit too far to stretch one’s willing suspension of disbelief. Also, a
marriage between a nun and a Duke would not be easily kept secret. The Viennese court would
likely expect the marriage to produce an heir. Isabella would inherit royal obligations that would
be incredibly difficult to avoid without arousing suspicion that the engagement was ethereal. Any
realism or reasonability that would be maintained through this artifice, would be destroyed by
thinking through the consequences a bit further. This serves to reinforce the idea that the Duke
must be improvising new solutions as he encounters each obstacle. Even the artificial
Hansen 47
justification I created for the purposes of making sense of the end of the play would be another
arrow in the quiver of the Duke’s instinctive narcissism, showcasing his inability to think ahead
to the legal, and perhaps religious, consequences of a Duke pursuing a false marriage. Once
Professor McGonigle helped to guide me toward a path without quite as much extraneous
fabrication, “trusting the text” as he would put it, and not creating extra-textual plot points to
justify a narrative that we wanted to place upon the already existing story Shakespeare wrote, the
character became much more clear.
The play also gains layers of nihilistic satire when the audience can be tricked into
thinking that Angelo is a cartoonishly evil man, and the Duke is entirely benevolent, only to be
shown the reality of the world when the Duke strips Isabella’s autonomy just as she believes she
is free from the abuses of corrupt men in power. The abusive inevitability of broken patriarchal
systems can be displayed with unexpected nuance in performances of Measure for Measure as
long as the text is allowed to live and proceed without external agendas staining the otherwise
unsatisfying ending of the play. The experiences of women in Measure for Measure will never
end in satisfying ways. The Duke’s marriage command in Act V serves to shock the audience
back into reality, highlighting that, yes, Angelo is bad, but the world is still run by men who
rarely think of anything or anyone but themselves. Vienna, as portrayed in the play, represents a
fictional dramatization of the real city in Austria; however, the experiences of those within the
world of the play are anything but fictional. Finishing this play with a twist ending that reveals
the primary protagonist as a secret antagonist parallels the experiences of women throughout
history as the illusion of equal treatment of men and women is stripped away. The unsatisfying
ending of Measure for Measure is not a bug, but a feature.
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My role and responsibility, as the interpreter of the Duke, is to play a character who
believes himself to be virtuous and right while also maintaining a subtle and consistent
throughline of improvisation and entitlement until the reveal at the end of the play. If I succeed in
my depiction of the Duke within the context of the play as a whole, the audience would be
subconsciously skeptical of the Duke while still accepting his supposed benevolence as the
primary protagonist. This skepticism, though subconscious, would provide just enough evidence
for the twist ending to seem believable without revealing the Duke as a patriarchal abuser from
the very beginning. The interpretation of this character affects nearly every event in the play as
the Duke drives most of the plot forward throughout the piece. We were able to craft a version of
the Duke that allowed the plot to be believably pushed forward without undermining much of the
meaningful social commentaries available to modern audiences watching this play.
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Chapter 4: Casting and Rehearsal Process
As is the case for many actors, my work began well before auditions. I knew of Measure
for Measure’s infamous difficulty, and I was looking forward to the challenges a piece like this
might offer. Of course, very little in the casting process can be predicted or guaranteed, but as a
graduate student, we are often reserved for some of the more challenging interpretive pieces, so I
knew there was a strong chance at being cast in this production.
Reading through the play before auditions began reminded me of the piece’s intensity. At
the time, I did not know the play was technically considered to be a comedy, though the play
ends with three marriages and includes several comedic side characters. Like most actors with
marginal familiarity with the piece, I knew Measure for Measure as ‘the blackmail play.’ I had
participated in acting classes where scenes from Measure for Measure were performed, and most
of the time the scenes chosen for in-class work were Act II scenes ii and iv, the confrontations
between Angelo and Isabella. Because most of my exposure to this play came from classwork,
the way I imagined the sizes of each role became warped. I thought most of the play surrounded
Angelo and Isabella’s conflict, and though Angelo’s crimes incite most of the show’s events, they
do not carry as much stage time as I had originally assumed.
The statistical division of word percentages does not necessarily determine which role
contains the most interesting challenges for an actor. Though I learned that the Duke had the
most lines, I still viewed him as a very consistent plot device. The Duke spends most of the play
interacting with problems as they arise and figuring out how to deal with them. At first, I thought
it would be a greater challenge to be cast in a role like Angelo. I rarely get opportunities to play
truly despicable villains, and sometimes it can be alluring for the chance to stretch my abilities
Hansen 50
even when the person I might be tasked with playing is seriously distasteful. I never really gave
much thought to the idea of playing the Duke. Additionally, while reading the text, I imagined
the Duke to be much older than me. There are not many male presenting actors in the WVU
theatre department who were older than me, so I could have assumed that I would be considered,
but I still held reservations that I might get the chance to play the Duke. As a relevant anecdote,
WVU was also casting the musical Bright Star at the same time as Measure for Measure, and I
assumed that with my musical background, I would likely be considered for a part in that show
before I would be given one of the leads in a Shakespeare play. I felt confident in my
performance capabilities, but I knew where my abilities would fit best and assumed that my
potential callbacks would reflect that.
During the audition process, I initially presented myself to the casting team with a
Shakespeare monologue and a country song as per the stylistic requirements of this season’s
shows. When the callback lists were sent out, I was excluded from the Measure for Measure
callback list by mistake. At the time however, I assumed that I was no longer in consideration for
any roles in the show, and dedicated my preparation towards learning the materials for Bright
Star. The first day of callbacks arrived and I had prepared almost nothing for Measure for
Measure aside from the work I had already done before the auditions began. As I was stretching
before the dance portion of the musical theatre callbacks, one of the audition monitors quickly
informs me that they left me off the callback list by mistake and I was in fact needed in the
Measure for Measure callback room.
While I was thrilled to be in consideration for the play, I was worried at my own lack of
preparation. The other auditioners knew that they were called back for the show and could
Hansen 51
mentally prepare themselves. I assumed that I was out of consideration. Cold read callbacks are
not my favorite kind of audition, especially so with Shakespeare.
In many ways, I believe the impromptu nature of my callback process improved the
quality of my audition. I had little time to second guess my character choices and many of the
scenes were familiar to me in concept, but unfamiliar in practice. The text itself proved
challenging enough to speak clearly with intent and purpose, most of my acting work had to be
done by instinct and impulse which often can add an organic electricity to any actor’s
performance. Professor McGonigle seemed to enjoy the character choices I made in the moment.
Shortly after the callbacks ended, I was cast as the Duke.
Rehearsals began with extensive tablework. These weeks of analysis and discussion feel
very typical for Shakespeare productions I have been a member of in the past. The text is
famous, poetic, and very old, and it takes time to parse through the literal definitions of what the
characters are actually saying. In addition to explicating the text so we could understand it, we
spoke about the cuts we were making to the script.
Many Shakespeare shows produced in the 21st century trim his text to avoid performance
runtimes that last longer than two hours. Our production ended up being longer than two hours,
but still shorter than what the full, uncut text would have been. The majority of our cuts were
internal to the scenes themselves, removing words and parentheticals that could have slowed
down the delivery of some key ideas and cluttering up the audience’s ability to understand the
story. These cuts were not only necessary to keep the audience’s attention for the whole
performance, but in many ways, the cuts helped clarify and distill the meaning and intention
behind the lines into something more concrete and understandable. It can become difficult to
understand a character who constantly inserts parenthetical phrases, attempting to clarify what he
Hansen 52
just said, when it could be made much clearer if he spoke the phrase more succinctly.
Shakespeare’s words are poetry and it is not required that all of his words serve to forward the
plot in an efficient way; however, in Measure for Measure, a piece where almost all of the plot is
conveyed through conversation and exposition, it becomes imperative for the audience to be able
to understand the meaning of the lines. Clarity, especially in academic theatre, holds immense
power, and we worked very hard to clarify the text as we worked through the script during the
first few weeks around a table.
Once we removed the tables and started staging the scenes on our feet, the comedic
elements of the play began to take greater shape. Again, when I first approached this piece, I
assumed that it was primarily a drama. In many ways, it is very much still a drama. The play’s
content can be immensely disturbing to modern audiences, and the first audience to see any play
is the company of artists tasked with producing it. That being said, there are many elements of
Measure for Measure that can be truly hilarious. Surrounding the Duke is a legion of comedic
relief characters making fools of themselves and making it harder for the Duke to accomplish
anything productive. The play’s clever banter about nobility, crime, justice, and religion present a
genius satire of a corrupt criminal justice system. Characters such as Elbow and Pompey
experience the more litigious side of Viennese politics. While the Duke galivants through the city
wearing a disguise and improvising inefficient solutions, Shakespeare shows the audience the
effects of such a broken judicial process through the eyes of average citizens. Elbow and
Pompey, though they both act as a forms of comedic relief, represent the common citizens of
Vienna. Their comedic trials and court scenes where they are interrogated or convicted by
Angelo and Escalus serve to highlight the injustice faced by average people, and it took elevating
the words from the script to the stage for me to see the satire in full.
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As the Duke is present for most of the scenes in the show, I was surprised by the stamina
this role required once we were fully rehearsing on our feet. The Duke has more stage time than
any other character, so most rehearsals required my participation. Evening rehearsals after
classes will always take up a significant portion of a student’s schedule. The demands of
graduate education in addition to a hefty character responsibility presented significant obstacles
to overcome. Endurance, both in and out of the rehearsal room, took up a large percentage of my
focus and mental fortitude. Additionally, the lines themselves required memorization of course.
The Duke speaks more than any other character, and it took nearly the entire rehearsal process to
finally set down my script with confidence.
Most of the physical and mental challenges I faced were outside of anyone’s direct
control, as they were most often consequences of a typical graduate acting education. Teaching,
rehearsing, memorizing, in addition to my own classwork cost me a great deal of energy, and it
required immense effort to overcome. Memorizing Shakespeare’s text presents many challenges
and benefits that are not often present in memorizing contemporary text. On one hand, the text is
centuries old and can be difficult to understand when read or heard by contemporary eyes and
ears. In contrast, because the text is so singular in its word choice, I find Shakespeare’s lines
easier to memorize with word-perfect accuracy. For me, contemporary text is more easily
understood at first glance, but when asked to speak the lines in character with perfect accuracy of
both word choice and punctuation, it can be more difficult to remember the small details
included in more modern scripts. It feels easier to recall a more extreme deviation from what I
consider to be my ‘normal’ manner of speaking than to remember a subtle one. Of course
Shakespeare’s text contains many subtleties and many small details that add significant depth to
the interpretation of a character or play. Those subtleties are often easier for me to accurately and
Hansen 54
consistently remember because the syntax and choice of words is so different from what I use
every day. That being said, the text still took weeks of dedicated work to memorize. The Duke is
responsible for delivering much of the play’s important information and plot advancement, and if
I were to fail in my memorization of key ideas or punctuation the audience could very quickly
lose track of the plot.
Memorization, time dedication, and energy became significant concerns very quickly, and
though it seemed superficial when I first started, the ability to maintain my personal standard of
work and performance required a different kind of dedication that I did not at first expect. After a
couple of challenging weeks mid-process, I realized, in order to prevent myself from crumbling
into a heap of exhaustion and malnutrition, I needed to feed myself with more calories and
higher quality. This turned out to be more challenging than I would initially have assumed.
As graduate students, our reservoirs of both time and money are often running lower than
they would have been in a more regular, non degree-pursuant lifestyle. So I had to now figure out
how I would use my dwindling resources to most efficiently fuel this demanding process. For
most of the school year, I could manage my time and energy with a meal before classes, a snack
during the day in between class and rehearsal, and a larger meal when I got home. This ended up
not being sustainable through these long rehearsal days where I spent most of the day on my feet.
Thankfully, WVU provides their graduate students with an office space where I was able to stash
a disaster triage worth of protein bars, snack foods, and sandwich making supplies. I managed to
craft a small pre-rehearsal lunch routine that gave me enough nutrition to get through the day
without feeling faint or nauseous. A younger Spencer would have dismissed the importance of
proper nutrition as an insignificant part of the artistic process. The demands of the Duke quickly
showed me how important proper nutrition would be. This new meal regimen I created for
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myself I brought through many more productions at WVU, and it saved me from many
potentially disastrous days throughout the rest of my graduate education.
In addition to a restructuring of my approach to nutrition, rest, and general health, my
memorization and character obligations were made much easier by my training in both Meisner
Technique and Uta Hagen, specifically referring to the creation of a deep inner emotional
landscape and the endowment of objects and environments respectively. As the Duke
experiences the avalanche of consequences throughout the play, creating a deep personal
emotional landscape for the Duke helped me both play the character with organic truth and, in a
practical sense, remember my next line. Memorization becomes much easier when the internal
personal experiences of the character lead you to the next line as if you were simply reacting
without a script. In addition, Uta Hagen’s endowment of objects and environment can also serve
to organically motivate the next line. The Duke’s relationship with his environment can inform
his decisions as much as his own personal emotional landscape. In Act V, the Duke feigns
ignorance for the majority of the Act’s duration, attempting to guide the performative public trial
toward an intended conclusion without giving away the information he obtained through
deception. This performance is inevitably altered by the scene’s environment. Endowing the
fourth wall with meaning allowed the memorization process to become easier and more
consistent. Once I was able to answer the questions: how many people are watching this trial?
How does the Duke feel about feigning ignorance in such a public setting? What changes about
the trial when holding it in public versus in a courthouse or a palace? These among many other
questions hold the keys to unlocking an instinctive and organic memorization process. This
motivates my next line through meaning and personalization rather than rote recitation.
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As we neared the tech process, we began incorporating more costume and prop pieces as
the design departments got them ready for onstage use. My characterization of the Duke was
particularly informed by the addition of props and costumes because he spends the majority of
his stage time in disguise. The final design of the Duke’s disguise included glasses, a gray wig, a
monk’s robe, and a fake nose. The costume worked incredibly well at masking my undisguised
appearance. I will expand more on the differentiation between the covert and overt versions of
the Duke in the next chapter, but much of my character’s embodiment in the story was
determined by the excellent prop and costume designs.
As I became more and more comfortable with the text and embodiment of the Duke,
Professor McGonigle would offer me chances to ask questions. At this point, I had long
abandoned my initial justification of the Duke’s actions for the more progressive interpretation
the production was taking. We were now incorporating run-throughs with more regularity. After
we would finish a run, Professor McGonigle would give us notes, then crucially, give us a
chance to ask clarifying questions about observations we made through the run. This dedicated
question time proved invaluable to my process as it would offer me a time to critically reflect on
the performance and moments where I would be confused or otherwise struggling. One specific
instance where my confusion was efficiently resolved occurred almost a week before we began
our tech rehearsals. I had been grappling with the Duke’s monologue in Act III scene i, where he
attempts to comfort Claudio in anticipation of his execution, and for many consecutive rehearsals
I had been struggling with personalizing the speech. I had not yet understood why the Duke
would keep talking to Claudio when they both know he is condemned to death. I could have
created a reason, in much the same way as I previously tried to justify the ending of the play, but
once the run through ended Professor McGonigle opened up the floor to discussion where I was
Hansen 57
able to ask him what specific thoughts he may have regarding the Duke’s internal calculations
during the monologue. Professor McGonigle offered the possibility that the Duke could be
speaking more to himself than to Claudio. The ears of a condemned man provide a macabre kind
of safety in that any confessions or secrets revealed to Claudio would die along with him. This
self-centered interpretation of the speech ended up solidifying the already exciting improvisatory
interpretation of the Duke, as he would be using his conversation with Claudio not to genuinely
provide comfort to a dying man, but to work out his own confusions and solve his own problems.
The duration of the show provided me few opportunities for reflection as I was running from
scene to scene, and having a dedicated conference time at the end of a run helped me clarify
anything that had me confused during the times when I could not reflect.
At this point, the show had already started solidifying into a somewhat regular rhythm
which marked another interpretive checkpoint in the life of the piece. After finding a familiar and
consistent flow from scene to scene, our show, like many others, began to take on a personality
of its own. We knew the play very well, and we were also some of the only members of the
university with such an in-depth knowledge of this niche Shakespearean play. It felt different
than performing a more popular piece of Shakespeare’s. When approaching a piece like Romeo
and Juliet or Hamlet you have the foundation in the back of your mind that the audience will be
coming in with their own established expectations for the piece. Whatever those assumptions
may be, audiences who are already familiar with a play will inevitably be viewing the play
through their preconceived notions and biases. With Measure for Measure, it was much easier for
the cast to feel a sense of personal ownership and responsibility over the piece. We knew that
most audience members would know close to nothing about the show, and that allowed us a
significant sense of freedom to our interpretation. Though the play has existed for centuries,
Hansen 58
modern audiences in West Virginia are generally unfamiliar with the play. The cast and I were
able to revel in the freedom of performing this piece for many audience members for whom this
would be their first time consuming this play’s story. Defining the audience’s primary experience
with a piece of Shakespeare is a profound responsibility, and a welcome one for actors like
myself who take pride in the craft and interpretation of Shakespeare’s work.
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Chapter 5: Embodiment and Performance
As performances commenced, all my work on character interpretation and embodiment
finally came together. After feeling solid and confident through our tech and dress rehearsals, we
finally allowed audience members into the theatre. Before I explore the ways the show as a
whole transformed throughout the performance process, I want to elaborate on the specific ways
I chose to embody the character physically, vocally, and intentionally.
Any actor playing the Duke is essentially tasked with playing two characters: Duke
Vincentio, and Friar Lodowick. Disguised characters is a common trope used in many
Shakespeare plays, and the believability of the disguise is usually determined by the behavior of
the other characters as they interact with the facade. The Duke’s true identity is never revealed
until very near the end, unless the production decides that he reveals himself. Our production
included a small deliberate reveal of the Duke’s identity to the Provost in Act IV scene ii, in an
attempt to convince the Provost to go along with the Duke’s deception, but for the most part, the
Duke remains entirely disguised until his hood is physically ripped off of his head by Lucio in
the trial scene of Act V.
Playing a character who believably disguises themselves provides a fascinating
performance opportunity for any actor: is the pretense believable because the character is skilled
at deception; is the disguise effective because none of the characters they interact with know
what they truly look like; or, is it effective for some other reason, whether that is something as
simple as a change of clothes, a fake name, or just suspension of disbelief? Audiences can be
very willing to accept very unbelievable realities as long as they are given a basic reason why the
disguise happens to work properly and the logical support from the world of the play. An
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audience’s suspension of disbelief can be manipulated to great effect when given an opportunity
to buy into a story. The decision itself of attending a theatrical performance implies an agreement
between audience and actor: the crowd has come to see a story where they know someone will
be representing themselves as a person they are not, doing things they might not normally do.
Audiences expect to be fooled, and Shakespeare uses this expectation to place the Duke in
situations where he would normally be absent. Shakespeare gives the audience a great deal of
information through the Duke’s participation in theatrical devices like a disguise.
These questions offer forks in the interpretive road that greatly inform how one’s
character will manifest onstage. It took a few rehearsals away from table work for me to
officially answer some of these questions. Eventually I decided that the Duke’s disguise worked
because of two reasons: none of the regular Viennese citizens had really ever seen the Duke up
close, and the Duke’s facial prosthetics and wig were very effective at changing his appearance.
With these reasons in mind, I also came to the conclusion that the Duke was not actually very
good at acting like most average people. He chose to disguise himself as a friar so that he could
maintain most of his aristocratic superiority. The clerical appearance gave him a kind of casual
authority where common citizens would allow him to walk amongst them without drawing much
attention, but if they were to address him directly, they would be less surprised when he started
advising them or perhaps commanding them to do his bidding. His clerical disguise let the Duke
maintain most of his personality, which allowed me to focus on playing the Duke honestly
without changing much in terms of physical or vocal presence.
The umbrella realization that ended up informing the majority of my physical and vocal
presence was: the Duke has been craving this release of royal responsibility for quite some time.
He begins the play, in the very first scene, by leaving his office to Angelo and heading off to
Hansen 61
Friar Thomas to don his disguise. I decided that this disguise was something the Duke had been
anticipating with excitement for a while. This meant that, when he was fully immersed in his
disguise and realized how successful it was, he finally allowed himself to relax. The disguise
almost served as a vacation for the Duke, my physical and vocal embodiment of the character
would naturally reflect this relaxation.
That does not mean that I would forego any physical or verbal alteration to the disguised
Duke. My physical and vocal alterations were very much deliberate, but I was able to create
subtleties in his characterization that proved to be a worthy challenge for an enthusiastic actor
like myself. Having decided that the Duke was not a very skilled actor, and would not do very
much to purposefully alter his own physicality or vocal presence, I chose instead to focus on how
the Duke would feel donning a successful disguise. The exploration of the Duke’s emotional
experience as he lives through the events of the play greatly informed my embodiment of the
character.
Physically, his posture underwent the least-subtle of the changes when in and out of
disguise. When out of disguise as the Duke, I felt that he would carry himself with the instinctive
superiority of someone who was born and raised with the knowledge that he would eventually
rule over everyone in the city. Utilizing fundamentals from both classical dance and Alexander
Technique, he held himself as tall as he could, and he moved with grace and poise. I realized his
image was very important to him, and the way he took up space in his life outside of the disguise
was both manicured and precise.
Alexander Technique, among many other things, focuses on alignment and posture when
existing onstage. The spine becomes a pillar of energy, and the performer’s posture becomes
another tool of physical storytelling available to the actor. Characters that bear themselves with
Hansen 62
instinctive confidence can benefit greatly from Alexander work, and the electric presence one
can gain from a proper implementation of Alexander technique can energize a character even
while standing still and silent.
I have trained in ballet and ballroom dance for almost a decade. Most often, I get the
chance to implement this training in musical theatre; however, when playing the Duke, I was
given the chance to explore a person who was more than likely also trained in some form of
formal partner dance. The Duke, always conscious of his appearance, would certainly have
experience attending parties or balls where he would be expected to dance, or at least physically
exist in the same space as others with dance and posture training. His comfortability in his role as
the monarch of Vienna implies his confidence in his physical presence both in and out of
disguise.
Vocally, the Duke operates in a similar way to his physical presence. As a politician, he is
very accustomed to speaking clearly to potentially large rooms full of many people. His
pronunciation outside of disguise is precise, and his vocal projection is supported. He could
speak to large groups of people comfortably for extended periods of time. With my background
in musical theatre, specifically, my experience singing consistently through the duration of a
show, helped me tremendously when arriving at the challenging and lengthy vocal undertaking
during the first and only scene in Act V. The final scene of this play is also its longest, and after
performing for almost two hours as the central character, reliable stamina and volume became
important considerations very quickly. My training in song allowed me to consistently maintain
the stamina, volume, and precise diction required to finish the show. Additionally, the anatomical
training I received during the voice courses of this MFA gave me an awareness that allowed me
to diagnose the appropriate parts of my body that required activation for effective sound
Hansen 63
production. I was able to activate my transversus muscles to support optimal release and
engagement of the diaphragm. This purposeful activation and release allowed me to produce
sound freely with intent and intelligibility. The Duke demonstrates his comfort with public
speaking in grand fashion during the trial scene of Act V where he spends nearly thirty minutes
speaking to a crowd of Viennese citizens and politicians gathered to witness the public return of
the Duke and the eventual sentencing of Angelo. He speaks with precision, choosing his words
carefully, and communicating them clearly and effectively as needed.
Conscious posture work, graceful movement experience, and precise diction with robust
diaphragmatic support were pivotal in informing how to embody the Duke while out of disguise.
Unfortunately, the Duke spends very little stage time out of his disguise. This leads me to my
eventual cohesion of the Duke’s out of character embodiment with his in-character emotional
existence.
The Duke donned the disguise in large part to escape his royal responsibilities. I decided
that this would be the Duke’s chance to escape his physical training as well. While presenting as
the Friar, I deliberately allowed his posture to sink, his movements to grow more lethargic, his
voice to drop the artificial precision, and his overall presence to become less manicured. The
decision to release the physical and vocal artifice while in disguise is perhaps counterintuitive, as
most characters find their less artificial embodiment to be the one they live with most
authentically. I made this decision in the pursuit of creating a more believable illusion, but
primarily because the release of artifice and responsibility was the reason why the Duke donned
his robes in the first place. It would be distinctly unpleasant and inconvenient if the disguise he
chose would require more work, more dedication, more responsibility than what would normally
be required of him as the monarch of Vienna. Differentiating the distinct physical and vocal
Hansen 64
presences of Duke Vincentio ended up being deliberately subtle, but in the end it served to
effectively communicate the story of the Duke as a human being, as well as the key plot points
necessary for completing the play. Audiences may not be perfectly aware of the embodiment
decisions I made. That is part of the grand craft of acting: much of the work and skill required to
put on a successful performance will not be immediately detected by the audience. Nonetheless,
this sort of physical and vocal distinctions let me live more truthfully as the Duke and
significantly improved my performance.
Incorporating these techniques into the final product during performances proved to be
both challenging and artistically fruitful. Our play’s reception was surprising and positive. Most
of my surprise came from the audience’s warm reaction to one of Shakespeare’s less popular
plays. The audiences at WVU consist of theatergoers with a diverse range of familiarity with
theatre. Of course, many audience members in these shows are theatre students or faculty
themselves. These artists usually have a robust understanding of theatrical conventions. They are
usually quite familiar with Shakespeare as a playwright if not with Measure for Measure
specifically. These artistic audience members are usually very supportive and receptive
regardless of the quality of the show. They understand the work it takes to put on a production of
any kind, and their participation in the audiences of academic shows reflect that empathy and
enthusiasm.
The rest of WVU audiences consist of three groups: regular theatre patrons, parents of
theatre students, and non-theatre affiliated students who are required to see a play for class.
These three groups represent the strictest critics and strongest test of a show’s quality. The
parents and patrons of the theatre might not know much about the process themselves, but have
expressed an appreciation at least for the people in the play if not for the play itself. The third
Hansen 65
group, the reluctant students, present a significant entertainment obstacle, especially when
performing a piece as old and as dense as Shakespeare.
At every performance, there are usually anywhere from two to fifty students who are
attending because the class that fulfills their arts credit requires their attendance. Ideally, these
students would sign up for these classes with the knowledge and excitement that they have the
privilege of getting class credit just for seeing a play. In reality, there are often more reluctant
students attending these performances than excited ones. This presents a very interesting
challenge for the performers. Our production did not craft the show with the express desire to
entertain the reticent hordes, however the purpose of any play is to tell some sort of story, to
provide some sort of entertainment for an evening with clarity as a primary goal. As avant garde
as any piece of theatre desires to be, it still aims to communicate something to its audience,
whoever that may be.
As the actor who had been bestowed the responsibility of playing the Duke, I had my
storytelling work cut out for me when facing audiences already full of reluctant students. If they
were not going to be entertained by our production, at least I would want them to be somewhat
conscious of the main events that carry our story from beginning to end. Communicating subtle
plot details through four-hundred-year-old poetry to a group of students who are being forced to
attend seemed both daunting and exciting. My goal became communicating this story to our
audiences seemingly by accident. My work was very much purposeful, but I wanted the audience
to surprise themselves with their interest in, or at the very least, awareness of the most interesting
moments in the play. As the Duke, I have an incredible opportunity to act as a pseudo narrator.
The Duke experiences the play at the same time the audience experiences it, and I wanted the
Duke’s decision making process to reflect the awareness of the audience, especially with the
Hansen 66
inclusion of Professor McGonigle’s guidance towards a more impulsive and instinct driven
Duke. While playing the Duke as the fickle despot that he ended up being, it allowed me to bring
the audience closer to the story with snap decisions made in the same moment that the audience
is made aware of the issue the Duke is trying to solve. Suddenly, the Duke’s decisions depict
more than just a self-absorbed monarch. The decisions the Duke makes reflect the thoughts and
realizations of the audience members themselves as they are informed of important events at the
same time. The Duke can then react to these significant events and reel the audience in as if they
themselves had a finger on the scale turning the Duke’s decisions toward a more interesting
story.
Whether I was entirely successful in my attempted enticement, I can only guess. I was
teaching a class of less than twelve students at the time. My students were required to attend the
play, but they were all looking forward to seeing a piece by Shakespeare and therefore would not
make a particularly appropriate control sample of whether I was successful in enticing the less
enthusiastic audience members. That said, the greater reception of our production was almost
universally positive. As many audience members enjoy staying after the performances to chat
with actors as they leave the theatre, we were able to receive immediate feedback while the
performance was most fresh on the minds of those who saw it. Additionally, many other cast
members served as instructors for theatre classes of their own, and they reported similarly
positive feedback from the students in their classes who came to see the show. Understandably,
the audience members who are most willing to give their honest feedback will be biased towards
the audience members who enjoyed it the most, but Measure for Measure is already a
challenging piece with challenging events told through challenging text. If we were even
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partially successful at telling a story for the first time to students who would not have otherwise
heard the story, that would be a success.
Hansen 68
Conclusion
The Duke is a complicated role, in a complicated play, within an ever changing web of
interpretations both creative and commercial. Directors and actors alike must ask themselves
whether they would prefer a show with a satisfying ending that undermines potential social
commentaries in favor of leaving the audience with a show that may sit more pleasantly within
their theatrical preferences, or a show that preserves both the anti-patriarchal commentaries and
Shakespeare’s original text at the expense of a serious theatrical rug-pull in the last few hundred
lines of the story. My intent is not to definitively state that one interpretation is superior to
another, however, I am claiming that one interpretation, the one taken by our production, lends
itself to a more impactful and respectful presentation of this often problematic piece of
Shakespearean theatre.
There are many other aspects of this play that may turn off an audience member from
their enjoyment of the piece that have nothing to do with the Duke. I do not endeavor to say that,
when interpreting the piece as we have, the play is without flaws. As with any piece of art,
interpretations are as varied as the audience members themselves who come to see it. In the end,
we must approach our own work with as much integrity and respect as we can muster. The Duke
is an integral part of the portrayal of this play, not only because he drives the plot for most of the
show, but he is present onstage for the vast majority of the play’s duration. The interpretation of
the Duke holds great sway over how the piece as a whole will inevitably be received, and both
directors and actors must be conscious and precise with the interpretive decisions that they make
before releasing it to the public. Without intent and respect, great damage can be done, or at the
very least, great artistic opportunities could be easily missed.
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Playing the Duke informed my process as an artist and actor by refining my ability to
analyze a role with a more open-minded awareness of the potential pitfalls of scrubbing the
discomfort out of theatrical experiences. There is certainly an appropriate time and place for the
pure comfort and satisfaction to determine the interpretive direction of a performance, but the
reinterpretation of art for the sake of the audience’s comfort is a mindset used primarily by those
whose profit margins or performance checkpoints rely upon audience satisfaction for their
rubrics of success. Ideally, the version of myself that creates art for the rest of my life will be
able to consider the two with equal viability and choose an appropriate path that does not
sacrifice important things in maintenance of one or the other. Art can exist for pleasure and art
can exist for reflection. Art does not have to be bound by one interpretation, nor does it have to
present a satisfying conclusion even if its interpretation is clear and precise.
As in all things, art and people exist in multitudes. The consequences of artistic
interpretation can reverberate far beyond a show’s final bow. Because of my experience in
Measure for Measure, my experience writing this thesis, and my experience through graduate
school, I will be able to pursue more impactful artistic expression with ever evolving care and
purpose. I endeavor to live and relax within discomfort if creative expression drives me to do so.
The feelings and reactions of audience members do not determine the worth of the art that I
create, though I can leave room for the audience to inform my work just as a collaborator can
offer helpful thoughts or moments of inspiration. Success is determined by oneself, and it
requires bravery to stand for one’s work in the face of potential disagreement. To quote the Duke,
for better or worse:
“Virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful.”
- The Duke, III.i.231-232
Hansen 70
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