A half Measure is more than enough!
THE first half of the Donmar Warehouse’s latest Shakespeare is terrific: a complete, boiled- down, costume-version of Measure For Measure.
They do it in 90 minutes — whoosh. Cracking boutique Bard.
The story is clear, the language sings and Hayley Atwell is superb as Isabella, the trainee nun who is told that she can save her brother’s life if she sleeps with a corrupt judge.
But then, moments before the interval, there is a boldly- staged change of gear and the second half retells the story, this time in modern dress.
You have to sit through the whole saga again, but now there are mobile phones, hashtags, gay kisses and disco lighting. Miss Atwell plays the corrupt ruler this time round, while the innocent novice is some recovering addict played by Jack Lowden (who had been the baddie in the first half).
What an ingenious ploy, fnarr-fnarr! Look at us, we’re in synch with all that #MeToo stuff and the spirit of the age!
Or so the director, Josie Rourke, wants us to think. She is trying to make a point about how we see things differently if a woman is in charge.
The audience at Wednesday’s final preview ( for which I had a £40, top-price ticket) certainly behaved differently during the second half.
Some of them laughed. And not in a good way. These were laughs that said ‘preposterous!’.
Measure For Measure’s moments of touching naivety, clemency, sibling devotion, judicial injustice and autocratic whim are made to look merely plastic and implausible.
By the end, I had had quite enough of Measure for bloody Measure. Pity, for the first half is so good. I strongly advise leaving at the interval.
Miss Rourke, who may one day realise that nothing is so modern as artistic truthfulness, has been in charge of the Donmar Warehouse for just six years. But she’s off soon.