Summary 
Effective modernization with the debauched Duke and proud Angelo attended by a striking combination of mobster's muscle and musician's entourage. Dark and sinister production, with Lucio and Barnardine the only comic relief due to the omission of Pompey and Mistress Overdone. Strong and sympathetic portrayal of Isabella anchors a bleak vision of a corrupted and corrupting modern Vienna.
Design
Directed by Nic Dimond. Set by Susan Kaip. Costumes by Elea Crowther. Lights by Scott Zematis. Music and sound by Mike Creason.
Cast
Tim Curtis (Duke), Jennifer Avery (Isabella), Michael Dailey (Angelo), James Zoccoli (Lucio), Carmine Grisolia (Escalus), TJ Cimfel (Claudio), Joel Patrick Gordon (Provost), Tom Hickey (Friar), Elizabeth Rich (Mariana), Gregor Mortis (Barnardine).
Analysis
Chicago's adventurous Strawdog Theatre takes its first stab at Shakespeare with the problematic Measure for Measure, and the company cuts nearly to the bone. Director Nic Dimond focuses on Duke Vincentio's attempted return to morality and Isabella's strengthening inner resolve, relegating Angelo's corruption to a lesser role and completely cutting the comic relief from Pompey, Elbow, Froth, and Mistress Overdone.
Dimond stages the play with murky claustrophobia upon five small rectangular platforms in Strawdog's tiny second-floor storefront space. A gunmetal-gray block wall looms upstage behind the actors, almost pushing them to the forefront. Lit almost entirely in shades of blue and purple, the set ripples with shadows, and ominous original music - dramatic strings and martial drumbeats - underscores the action of the play, as when Angelo nearly collapses after his initial encounter with Isabella.
The Duke's sordid modern Vienna is dominated by young men dressed in sleek power-suits, with slicked hair and prominent sideburns. The Provost's sentry-like bodyguards wear black sweaters with neck chains beneath their jackets, and with their sunglasses, goatees, and earrings, they resemble an entertainment industry entourage more than a political administration.
The troubled Duke begins the production in a silk robe over a tieless tuxedo shirt and slacks. He carries a glass of Scotch and appears to be a man of importance, but becoming enervated and overly opulent. In 1.3, he sits half-dressed in the Friar's chamber upon a disheveled cot, and the two men drink from Starbucks cups and share glances at a pornographic magazine. The shirtless Friar swigs from a liquor bottle as he helps the Duke finish dressing himself. The Duke's apparently carnal relationship with the Friar especially disturbs in light of the Friar's appearance: his torso is covered with tattoos of strange symbols and insignias. Dimond cleverly complicates the Duke's departure, rendering the sudden flight as a need to escape personal corruption as well as just a chance to test Angelo and "see what our seemers be."
Pointedly, the Duke's 5.1 return is made with the rejuvenated and cleansed Duke wearing a double-breasted, pin-striped suit. He now parallels the dapper and worthy Escalus, who wears hat and scarf, and carries a walking stick. The newly emboldened Duke, once he returns in disguise at 5.1.118 as the Friar, grasps the red-upholstered stool brought for the Duke and rocks it back and forth before flinging it - and the corrupted authority it represents - aside.
A wonderfully mannered performance enhances the thankless role of the Provost. Bemused but painstakingly professional, the understated Provost constantly adjusts his lapels and the knot of his tie, and he takes copious notes in a small black book. His movements are measured and slow, his speech quiet but direct, and he wears large silver rings on nearly every finger. His "honesty and constancy" are apparently a rarity, but he reveals cracks in his unflappable reserve, as does Angelo, except the Provost chooses what is just rather than the letter of the law. In 4.2, the Provost snatches a note from a messenger, severing the man's last word in mid-syllable. Moments later, his uncharacteristic eruption of temper in the face of the execution of Claudio is potently dramatic, as he slams his hand against a metal lectern in a corner of the dungeon prison.
Dimond wisely cuts characters and subplots - including Abhorson - and wields intense focus upon the three main characters. Even the rap attack styling of the pimp Lucio is not quite a distraction but a splash of modern color, and especially, a respite from Dimond's dark visuals and the unrelentingly bleak tone. The towering and gangly Lucio, wearing a furry sideways beret, belts out rap-music percussion noises, preens and spins, and half-dances while delivering his lines.
Other than Lucio, only Barnardine, the death row prisoner who "will not consent to die this day," relieves Dimond's somber texture. The fiery-haired and wild-eyed Barnardine passes gas, swigs from a vodka bottle, and, after he knocks the Duke to the floor and spews a mouthful of vodka over him, he kisses a shocked warden full on the mouth.
Angelo sports a crew cut with sideburns shaped almost like knife blades, and he has steely blue eyes but a boyish face. His youth makes the villainous Angelo even more frightening because one wonders how wicked the character might eventually become. Angelo, impatient but steadfastly logical and rigidly intense, locks eyes for uncomfortably long moments with the patrons in the front row during his searingly confessional 2.2 soliloquy. During his 4.4 appearance in a T-shirt under a silk robe, he resembles the corrupted Duke from 1.3, and the correlation, while subtle, provides insight into Angelo's guilt-ridden but stubborn state of mind.
Trapped in this morally polluted and male-dominated society is the well-spoken, attractive, and ethical Isabella. Isabella seems always anguished and near defeat, but throughout the production - and until the shattering 5.1.193 marriage proposal - she rises from meek and quietly religious to a strong and impassioned defender of what is right: "virtue is bold." She wears a hooded gray frock that contrasts with the political men's power suits, and in her initial appearance at 1.4.16, she demurely lights candles. Dimond foreshadows Isabella's predicament with the scene, showing Isabella fending off an embrace and attempted kiss from Lucio, just as she later resists sexual advances from Angelo.
Isabella's slow fall to her knees in her 5.1 defense of Angelo - her friend's husband but the murderer of her brother - is endearingly selfless and dramatically powerful. The sympathetic portrayal provides the audience with a morally grounded perspective, as the Duke attempts to rise to morality and Angelo falls farther from it.
The three strong performances, under Dimond's insightful direction and wise script choices, and with the designers' striking vision, make for excellent theatre and a stunning Shakespearean "debut" from a small but talented - and smart - Chicago company.
Note: A version of this article was edited and published in Shakespeare Bulletin, Vol.18, No.3, Summer 2000.