The End Game of "Measure for Measure"

"Measure for Measure" closes Sunday, Aug. 29, after a two week run at the Stonington Opera House on Deer Isle, but I've been thinking about the show since January, when I enrolled in a Shakespeare class taught by Harvard Professor Gordon Teskey. The class was a survey of Shakespeare's works, but students also learned how the events of Shakespeare's life and times shaped his writing. Teskey is a charismatic teacher. Students have organized a Facebook page for him because they love hearing him read Chaucer. I loved hearing him read Shakespeare, too, and there's no mistaking the actor in him, especially because he's one of the most stylishly dressed members of the academy. (The Harvard Crimson fashion columnist wrote a story about him.) This summer, Teskey was teaching in Venice, but he took a few minutes to answer questions about "Measure for Measure" -- a play I find difficult but that he helped me see more powerfully as a story about self sacrifice and as a demonstration of Shakespeare's progressive sense of structure for comedy and tragedy.
Given Teskey's expertise, I wanted him to help us understand more deeply the final scene of the play in which Shakespeare disconcertingly ties up the ends of a comedy that tipped so dangerously toward tragedy. As we continue to investigate this play, Teskey sets us up to consider how we might see the final scene.

Here's Teskey on the final scene of "Measure for Measure":

The most difficult scene technically is the final one. So much happens in it, and there are so many dramatic reversals. The moment when Mariana begs Isabella to kneel with her and beg the Duke to spare Angelo's life -- this when Isabella still thinks Angelo has murdered her brother -- is deeply moving, because Isabella does so. She is at last moved to pity for someone. But so much else occurs in the scene: the unmuffling of the Duke and the humiliation of Lucio as well as of Angelo, the trick with the head of Ragozine, and so on. It is very hard to stage and to keep up the pace, which should be rapid, without confusing the audience. It is thrilling, a little bewildering, funny, emotionally moving, and at the end (perhaps) a little mysterious.

Deconstruction: The Duke + Isabella

I remember listening to Mr. Fracé refer to each of the characters as having their own unique flaws. While I watched the play a second time, I thought upon how each character could have their own distinct set of flaws but hit on the conclusion that the Duke and Isabella are linked by the same: pride.

The Duke

The Duke’s pride is evident: he wants to be in control. I have heard Dr. Jerome mention that her reasoning for the Duke’s plot incognito was to set up a test of Angelo’s meddle, supposing that, if Angelo were successful, the Duke could transfer power to him. Accepting this view adds dimension to the Duke’s pride: although such a test acknowledges some insecurity, it also [to me] reveals a serious ego – the Duke elevating himself beyond the role of the respected leader to the status of the supreme justice (similar to that which Isabella attempts to invoke upon Angelo). From his position of removal, the Duke could “look down” upon Angelo and his doings in Vienna from an anonymous position of personal power – putting the Duke in control. Furthermore, once things begin going awry he can use this anonymous power to play the meddling Friar – again allowing him the control he requires.

The Duke’s position of leverage and his ego are what lead to the biased scales by which the play weighs one measure for another. Because the Duke manages to keep himself within control (in his own way) throughout most of the play, the outcome of the moral fiasco surrounding Angelo, Claudio and Isabella plays out to the Duke’s design. The Duke is able to obtain his version of justice – which doesn’t seem to answer all offenses with the same level hand one expects. However, the Duke’s arbitrary power and his pride – wanting to see things happen his own way – is what forces the play to resolve as it does.

Isabella

Isabella’s version of pride leads her to self-preservation. Her understandable yet somewhat stubborn rejection of Angelo despite her brother suggests that she places her fallible personal virtue (and virginity) over the life of her kin. This self-importance speaks pride and preservationism. In that vein, the best way to ensure self-preservation is… control. Isabella wants to have mastery of her fate. She eagerly plays ball with the meddling Friar (even though his plot crosses more moral lines than sacrificing her virginity would!) because it feeds her pride and gives her a thrill. Conspiring with the Friar gives her a proxy through which she can control her life and ensure that she didn’t have to sacrifice her precious self. Even though she states “i am led by you,” I suspect she allows herself to be led because it brings her the control she desires.

Isabella and the Duke

The Duke and Isabella’s shared self-importance and need for control are what I think leads the Duke to chose Isabella as his successor. Going back to Dr. Jerome’s view, given that the Duke is seeking to transfer power and that Angelo has failed [miserably], he is now searching for another successor. This is where I see the Duke’s pride return. I think the he wants to see his reign continued by someone like him – an expression of his pride. He sees himself in Isabella and is thus naturally drawn to her. Furthermore, Isabella’s ‘enthusiastic’ participation in his devices (read: she never really mentions any of the serious moral questions he ignores) helps fulfill the Duke’s self-worth, making him more likely to be well-disposed towards her. This could explain his choice at the level of pride. Another explanation could be romance, but I will choose to avoid that.

Furthermore, if one were to return to the Duke’s position as arbiter of justice and chief moralizer, his choice of Isabella to (presumably) continue his reign could strike deep cuts against Angelo at a personal level. The Duke is probably disgusted by Angelo’s transgressions, especially if Angelo is figured to originally been chosen to take over. Therefore, the perfect method of retaliation against Angelo would be for the Duke to award control to Isabella; Angelo having thought himself high in the Duke’s esteem would, although personally destroyed by his undoing, would be further wounded by having his place of esteem handed over to the very one he wronged. I have to argue this because the Duke could have easily transferred power to Escalus, who remained loyal to the Duke and committed no wrongdoing. However, the Duke chooses Isabella. What seems to go further is that choice - Isabella OVER Escalus. Considering the traditional Elizabethan role of the woman as a subordinate, the transfer of power to a female over a (barring age) perfectly eligible male (Escalus) represents an even bigger snub to Angelo – that the Duke would rather see a woman rule than he.

Thus although from my perspective the Duke’s choice of Isabella is primarily driven by his pride (or love?), his choice could even be elevated to a personal measure against Angelo.

It might be “Measure for Measure”, but who measures the Measures?

The Duke.

-Peter

The View from the Moated Grange

It's a rainy day on Indian Point Road, and it's the first full day off for the acting company of Measure for Measure. We've been running full sprint since we arrived in Stonington, right through our exciting opening weekend of performances. A day of rest feels welcome and well-deserved. Especially a grey day with gentle rain falling. The kind of day that gives your thoughts room to settle. I'm baking a peach and blackberry pie. In a little while I'll walk down the road to enjoy a convivial dinner with the rest of the M4M company.

For now, though, I am looking out the window at the rain, sitting alone in the sweet little house that I call the Moated Grange, in honor of Mariana, one of the five characters I play in Measure for Measure. "I will presently to Saint Luke's," says the Duke to Isabella, "there, at the moated grange, resides this dejected Mariana." For me, my characters always find their ways into my life. Or my life finds its way into my characters. This year in Stonington I find myself playing a girl who is suspended in a kind of tragic limbo: unrequited love and grief and, maybe, hope, foolish or otherwise...A central plot point turns on her history with Angelo. As we head towards our second week of performances I continue to be fascinated by the competing versions of that history woven into Shakespeare's text.

The undisputed facts: five years before the play begins, Mariana and Angelo were engaged; her war hero brother Frederick (her only surviving relative) died at sea in a shipwreck that also claimed her dowry; Angelo then broke off the engagement. There are different versions of why. Tommy Piper (Angelo) and I have an ongoing and lively debate about the Why.

In the Duke's version, Angelo "swallowed his vows whole, pretending in her discoveries of dishonor"--as in, he made up rumors about Mariana as an excuse to get out of marrying her when her dowry was lost--and abandoned her in her deep grief. In Angelo's version, the marriage plans were broken off "partly for that her promised proportions came short of composition, but in chief for that her reputation was disvalued in levity." So who is telling the truth?

Oh, I believe the Duke, here. In both text and action, Mariana is virtuous. She truly loves Angelo and must have believed he loved her: "This is that face, thou cruel Angelo, which once thou swor'st was worth the looking on." Her love for Angelo is past reason, past sense--surely we can sympathize with that. Isn't there redemption to be found in love that true? Isn't that the essence of mercy? That love is forgiveness, and that vengeance is a small weak thing next to the great vastidity of love?

Well, I cite the Beatles. All you need is love.

When I step out of the mindset of Mariana, I know Angelo does some baaad things. I know it. But Mariana has gotten so deep into me that I can't help believing that he deserves forgiveness too. Don't we want Mariana to be happy? Even if she loves not wisely, but too well?

The sky is darkening. The pie is cooling on top of the stove and I'm gazing out the window at the water. Time to walk down the road to dinner.

Mariana bakes pies, and dreams of Angelo.

Stephanie Dodd: "I'm faced with a large decision"

Abby Bray, a student at Stonington/Deer Isle High School, recently interviewed actor Stephanie Dodd, who plays Isabella 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." Dodd is a veteran artist at the Opera House where she performed in last year's "A Midsummer Night's Dream." In this interview, Abby asked Stephanie why we should care about her role. 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 entries about all things Shakespeare.

Phillip Owen: "If I ain't around, nothing good is going to happen"

Abby Bray, a student at Stonington/Deer Isle High School, recently interviewed actor-composer Phillip Owen, who plays a guard and a messenger -- as well as the onstage music -- 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." Owen is a veteran artist at the Opera House where he performed in last year's "A Midsummer Night's Dream." In this interview, Abby asked Phillip -- in character -- why we should care about his role. 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.