“MEASURE FOR MEASURE”

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 182, 22 October 1927, Page 15

“MEASURE FOR MEASURE”

SHAKESPEAREAN FESTIVAL “The Merchant of Venice” was presented for the last time last evening at I-lis Majesty’s Theatre, by the Allan Wilkie Shakespearean Company. This evening “Measure for Measure” will be staged. It is impossible to resist the impression when witnessing “Measure for Measure” that in it Shakespeare presents us with a picture of the manners and life of the cobbled Elizabethan streets of London, although the action is supposed to revolve in Vienna. Those humorous characters. Elbow, Froth, Pompey and Mistress Overdone, habitues of “The Bunch of Grapes” tavern, must be true pictures of Elizebethan Cockney folk; indeed, except for the difference in period, one would recognise Pompey as halfbrother to Dickens's Sam Weller. “Measure for Measure” is doubly attractive in that it is a play rarely staged. The last production of the play of any note was that at the Adelphi Theatre, London, in 1905. It was during that run of the piece that the grand old lady of the English stage, Miss Ellen Terry, on the occasion of Shakespeare’s birthday celebration, requested Oscar Asche that she might bo allowed to play a part, however small, with the result that for one night only Miss Terry was seen in the minor role of Francisca the nun, with but four lines to speak. Undoubtedly among the many splendid acting opportunities in “Measure for Measure/' the role of Isabella stands pre-eminent. A model of womanly purity, Isabella is subjected to the burning flame of Angelo’s passion, and to his subtle plot against her honour, but comes from the ordeal unscathed. Angelo, in whom we see a marvellously consistent character drawing, is the austere Governor, who, in face of Isabella’s beauty, uncovers a green streak in his mind composition which sinks him deeper and deeper in the mire of duplicity, abuse of power and hypocrisy. Perhaps in the whole of Shakespeare’s works there are no finer written scenes, with such a gripping power upon the attention of the audience, than the two interviews of Angelo with Isabella, and Isabella’s scene with her brother Claudio in the prison. In the latter scene Claudio has the opportunity to rise to great heights of acting, and there is a wonderful disclosure of the master playwright’s knowledge of human nature, when the young man. who has at first been horrified to hear of Angelo’s vile proposal to Isabella as the price of his pardon, veers round to acquiesce to it, and expresses his fear of death in the speech commencing, “Ay, but to die, and go we know not where.”