Is February too early to think about Shakespeare in August?

By Alicia Anstead

I've been thinking lately about the way the performing arts, and plays in particular, linger in our thoughts long after the curtain goes down. Plays, after all, are completely ephemeral. They happen, and they're gone. Except they're not. Think of the plays you've been to that have stayed with you -- whether because of the play itself (themes of love or death, for instance) or the circumstances in which you saw the play (the friend you were with or the phase you were going through). The poet T. S. Eliot talks about measuring life in coffee spoons. But some of us measure our lives in plays. I do at least.

But that's about what happens during a play or after a play. What about everything that happens before a play? A few weeks ago, Linda Nelson and Judith Jerome announced that Measure for Measure, directed by longtime friend of OHA Jeffrey Frace, is the play for Shakespeare in Stonington this summer. (Mark the dates: August 19-29, 2010.)

I couldn't be happier, in part because the experience starts now. Or rather, it started for me as soon as I heard the news. Immediately I turned to my handy cell-phone app PlayShakespeare.com and downloaded the text. For three days during a conference in New York City, I breathlessly read the play on my phone while riding the train to and from the event. At one point, I was so engrossed I missed my stop and ended up several stations away from my own. Wow, do I love when that happens, even if I'm late for something else.

On this read through, I was struck by the utter strangeness of Measure for Measure. It's called a problem play, but it's more than a problem play. It's a testy exploration of justice, mercy, personal agency and, once again, marriage. (Remember all the messiness about marriage last summer with A Midsummer Night's Dream?! If not, re-visit the blog posts that explore: I do, I don't, I might, I couldn't possibly "aspects" of marriage.) M4M is set in Old Vienna, but the themes of premarital pregnancy, enforcing the letter of the law, a woman's right to her own body and the shiftiness of politicians are all very relevant in the 21st century. Alas.

Thus begins our journey. Seven months before the show, the art has started to work its magic. I'll be checking in from time to time between now and summer with reports, tips and teasers about the play, the production and other related news. In the meantime, I'll be thinking -- and I hope you will be too -- about this question: When does art begin? When does it end? And what happens in the space between?