What would you do if you were Isabella?

Yu Jin Ko is a Shakespeare scholar at Wellesley College in Massachusetts and our guest conversationalist for the Talk Back after the production of "Measure for Measure" 7 p.m. Saturday Aug. 21 at the Stonington Opera House on Deer Isle in Maine. He will be joined onstage by director Jeffrey Frace and Opera House artistic director Judith Jerome to talk about the play, the production and Shakespeare's life and times. Recently, I asked Yu Jin (whose name is pronounced Yoo Gin) to answer three questions. You can read the first here; the second here and the third (Is "Measure for Measure" a love story?) is below. For this one, Yu Jin leaves us with a question. Come to the Talk Back after the show and bring your own questions for our guest speaker! Don't miss out on the fun; buy tickets now!


AA: Is this a love story?

YJK: If it is a love story, it’s a curious love. I would say there is love in it, but – as with mercy and justice – each vision of love is deeply compromised. Juliet, Mariana, they both possess something called love but it comes out in ways that are self-deceiving or in ways that hurt them or that make you question the substance of the feeling. But I gather the question is directed toward the Duke and Isabella and whether love is possible between the two. The play leaves you hanging doesn’t it? Isabella never responds to the Duke’s offer. Is it an offer or is it a demand? What is it when he asks or tells or orders her to be his? I don’t know. What would you do if you were in Isabella’s position?

A compromising situation

Yu Jin Ko is a Shakespeare scholar at Wellesley College in Massachusetts and our guest conversationalist for the Talk Back after the production of "Measure for Measure" 7 p.m. Saturday Aug. 21 at the Stonington Opera House on Deer Isle in Maine. He will be joined onstage by director Jeffrey Frace and Opera House artistic director Judith Jerome to talk about the play, the production and Shakespeare's life and times. Recently, I asked Yu Jin (whose name is pronounced Yoo Gin) to answer three questions. You can read the first here; the second (Is this a play about mercy, justice or power?) is below and the third (Is "Measure for Measure" a love story?) will be posted soon. Check back -- and also buy tickets to join us Aug. 21 and bring your own questions!

AA: Is this a play about mercy, justice or power?

YJK: The title sets it up to be a simple morality play about the limitations of absolute justice – about dispatching justice measure for measure. So you expect mercy to be the antithesis that wins the day. But everything is so compromised in this play – the vision of absolute justice embodied in Angelo and then the counter weight of mercy that Isabella and the others give voice to. In the end, you can’t say one element wins out over the other.

New "M4M" Photos on Flickr

New photos from "Measure for Measure" are available here

Pierre-Marc Diennet: "I'm here to live."

Abby Bray, a student at Stonington/Deer Isle High School, recently interviewed actor Pierre-Marc Diennet, who plays Lucio, a "fantastic," in "Measure for Measure" running through Aug. 29 at the Stonington Opera House. "Interviewing some of the cast of 'Measure for Measure' was the first time I'd done a formal interview," says Abby. "After some trial and error, it proved both fun and educational. I learned about the characters on a more personal level, and I also learned what attracts people to Stonington." Pierre is a veteran artist at the Opera House where he performed "Perdita," a show about his mother. In this interview, Abby asked Pierre -- as Lucio -- why we should care about his character. She also asked about working in Stonington compared to working in other locations. Give it a click. Then buy tickets! And check back on the Shake Stonington blog for more of Abby's interviews with actors. Coming soon!

Who's got the power?

Yu Jin Ko is a Shakespeare scholar at Wellesley College in Massachusetts and our guest conversationalist for the Talk Back after the production of "Measure for Measure" 7 p.m. Saturday Aug. 21 at the Stonington Opera House on Deer Isle in Maine. He will be joined onstage by director Jeffrey Frace and Opera House artistic director Judith Jerome to talk about the play, the production and Shakespeare's life and times. Recently, I asked Yu Jin (whose name is pronounced Yoo Gin) to answer three questions. The first is below; the second is here and the third is here. You can buy tickets to join us Saturday, Aug. 21 (TONIGHT!) after the show. Bring your own questions!

AA: Who is the most powerful person in this play?

YJK: You have so many centers of power and the source of power is so different for each in this play. Harold Bloom [the literary scholar] suggests that the most captivating character in the play is Barnadine, the prisoner who refuses death because he has been out drinking the night before. He presents a kind of irrepressible vitality that escapes the whole moral system of the entire play. He embodies that superfluidity of artistic energy that Shakespeare always displays in his plays. In some sense, he is the most powerful character. But more conventionally, you’d have to choose among Angelo, the Duke and Isabella. For me, it’s Isabella. She might come across to some as prissy and puritanical. But beyond all of that, the value she puts on her chastity, which she values above her brother’s life, is a value that is integral to her sense of self and takes her out of circulation – erotic and commercial – defining Vienna, a very corrupt and sordid society into which the Taliban in the form of Angelo has moved. Curiously, Isabella is the most powerful character because she tries the hardest and with the most force to define herself away from the categories of selfhood available to her.

Melody Bates/Mariana: "I hope folks will understand I am true of heart"

Abby Bray, a student at Stonington/Deer Isle High School, recently interviewed actor Melody Bates, who plays Mariana (a rejected lover) and other roles in "Measure for Measure" running Aug. 19-29 at the Stonington Opera House. "Interviewing some of the cast of 'Measure for Measure' was the first time I'd done a formal interview," says Abby. "After some trial and error, it proved both fun and educational. I learned about the characters on a more personal level, and I also learned what attracts people to Stonington." Melody is a veteran performer at the Opera House where she played Hippolyta/Titania in last year's "A Midsummer Night's Dream." In this interview, Abby asked Melody -- as Mariana -- why we should care about her character. She also asked about working in Stonington compared to working in other locations. Give it a click. Then buy tickets! And check back on the Shake Stonington blog for more of Abby's interviews with actors. Coming soon!

Major and Minor Roles

I love it that Tesky includes Lucio in his list of the great male roles. Pierre Diennet, a wonderful clown, plays our Lucio, and I watch him finesse his performance with every rehearsal. 'Modernizing' the role is exactly right, though I wouldn't have said it before reading Tesky's comment. In the community read in Brooklin on Monday I tried putting Lucio in my own mouth--and clumsy it was indeed, very unlike what I see Diennet carrying off.

The Duke is the mystery at the center of the play. Why does he skip town, leaving Angelo in charge? I'm with Tesky in seeing him more as a beneficent force, though in the community read Ellen called him a wimp. It was during his reign that the world of Shakespeare's Vienna fell into such supposed moral ruin. Director Frace and this cast portray him rather as ill, failing and searching, testing, perhaps for a possible successor.

But I am very interested in hearing more about how Tesky sees Measure for Measure as a "demonstration of Shakespeare's progressive sense of structure of comedy and tragedy."

And while in a very minor role, I nevertheless live each rehearsal to see Barnadine emerge onstage.

I'm just back in my office from watching the end of a run of Act I. We're in the middle of tech. It's a blustery day outside, chilly; tourists on the street are in jackets today--but inside the theater the fans onstage turn slowly. The Duke, in dilemma, dribbles cool water down his neck, and the lights are kept dim against the heat. The women wear nothing but their slips. Just saying. O delicious southern Bard.