OFS
27th February-1st March
Rating: 2/5
Measure for Measure received four star reviews in the OxStu and Cherwell, which I can’t help but feel is a little undeserved. The production was riddled with many of the difficulties which direction should tease out of this complicated text. The play is by no means a comedy, but a strong focus on tragedy, which meant that humour suffered. What I saw was not a confident mixture of the two that made me laugh uncomfortably at gruesome themes, but rather an uncertain blend, which made me feel as though I had been torn apart by fairly apathetic horses more than content to lick my face. The play, like that metaphor, seemed to lack direction.
What bothers me is that I could see some fantastic ideas under the surface, such as the move to present Angelo in a humane light. Furthermore, the use of a powerful Isabella is very impressive. At moments I found my cold heart feeling what I can only presume to be sympathy. The production deserves praise for attempting to do something new, though for having not quite succeeded it only gets a bronze medal.
Some of the acting was astounding; Leo Marcus Wan is perfectly cast as Angelo and really made me believe in the human element of a character I previously had labelled as a complete bastard. Roseanna Frascona is confident and compelling as Isabella. Lucio is poorly presented as a rugger bugger idiot, losing all the class and wit of the character, but Liam Wells performs the role ascribed with precision and good comic effect. However, Philip Maughan’s Pompey is overly severe and outshone by Francis Parham’s hilarious presentation of Elbow. Almost all of the cast were guilty at some point of losing drive, energy or possibly their faith in humanity, judging by some of the longer speeches which felt like train announcements. Most of the cast seemed to perform better in the second half, having presumably warmed up in the first. Krishna Omkar’s Duke deserves a special mention. Though at times his speech is a little monotonous, he is a commanding presence and realises the Duke with scheming and playful Machiavellian flair. I certainly feel that the loss to Oxford Politics is Oxford Theatre’s gain.
A lot has been made in the advertising about the setting of the play in a crumbling Eastern Bloc environment, and, having always held the OFS to be an ugly black box, I find the set very impressive. However, all that the USSR reference amounted to was dressing some of the characters in military uniform; the play maintains its nuns and monks, none of which I believe Soviet Russia was too hot on. Heaven forbid I would be so presumptuous as to recommend re-writing Shakespeare, but in this case the play could have done with some re-writing of Shakespeare.
by Dan Rawnsley
