Summary 
Modern Measure for Measure is imaginatively realized within black box intimacy. Pulsating lights, throbbing music and graphic depictions of prostitutes and strippers set the scene, contrasted with Angelo's ensuing response: storm troopers, police brutality, torture and oppression. A dramatically satisfying resolution to the trial is undercut by an ominous conclusion that points toward continuing wickedness.
Design
Directed by Leon Rubin. Designed by John Pennoyer. Lights by Michael Vieira. Sound by Jim Neil.
Cast
Thom Marriott (Duke), Robert King (Escalus), Jonathan Goad (Angelo), Don Carrier (Lucio), Diane D'Aquila (Mistress Overdone), Andrew Massingham (Pompey), Jeffrey Wetsch (Claudio), Dana Green (Isabella), Shane Carty (Elbow), Sarah Wilson (Mariana).
Analysis
Artistic Director Richard Monette designs Stratford Festival's 2005 season with a "Saints and Sinners" theme, and Leon Rubin directs a modernized Measure for Measure - all urban degradation in neon and cold steel - in the black-box Tom Patterson Theatre.
The modern Vienna of Measure for Measure is a sordid milieu, filled with bored prostitutes and seedy customers. Neon signs surrounded the stage - blue "Vanity," orange "Sin Tax," red "Hottie" - and amid pulsating lights and throbbing club music, garishly made-up strippers in leather and lace gyrate along poles, within cages and from a hanging trapeze bar; two of them pantomime sex inside a large metal hoop suspended over the stage. Stage fog swirls, liquor is served from an upstage bar, and young clubbers work the front row of the audience, chatting with patrons as the Duke watches from a private table. A group of outraged nuns appear upstage but pull off their habits to reveal themselves as lithe young strippers, and they gyrate and thrash to wild applause. The crowd's roar extends to a shirtless young man in chaps and cowboy hat who performs chin-ups at the trapeze.
Rubin minimizes the play's comic characters to better focus on the conflict between Angelo and Isabella, but he successfully immerses the lesser roles within the carnality of Vienna. Lucio and Pompey strut like pick-pocketing pimps in their pinstriped suits, and the bawd Mistress Overdone circles the stage with an empty flask, talking almost to herself. When she peers into the audience and remarks upon how many of her "old customers" are in attendance, Lucio and Pompey single out spectators with flashlights. Later, when she is escorted from Angelo's presence, the bawd coos an "oh, my" at a handsome officer, and during the production-concluding trial, she sits upon steps within the audience, leading the catcalls from the populace.
The opening sequence of Measure for Measure is a din of laughter and club music, lit with a dizzying array of color. The scene ends, however, with a raid by Angelo and his storm troopers, wielding rifles and batons as they charge the stage. Flashlights shine into the audience and now the cacophony is of another sort: police commands, the chop of helicopter blades, and the wail of sirens. Angelo begins his reign with brutality, as club denizens who do not escape are beaten and dragged from the stage. In a subsequent scene, the same properties used as sexual apparatus - suspended hoop, stripper poles - become prison cages and dungeon torture devices. Claudio, chained around his neck and manacled at the wrists and ankles, kneels within a cage of metal poles inside the barely-lit dungeon, his fellow prisoners lying on the floor around him. Bound within the metal hoop as if crucified, another prisoner struggles and cries out in pain. Uniformed guards wield shotguns and watch the inmates from the balcony.
The effects of Angelo's lust for Isabella - its impact upon him personally as well as on the dukedom over which he presides - are shown to be devastating. In a revealing early fantasy sequence, the deputy sits downstage at his desk, his hair slicked back and his uniform pristine, almost Victorian in his repression. Isabella appears upstage in the long gray robes and habit of a nun, and she slowly approaches, then stops amid a sudden club dance beat, rips off her robes, and dances suggestively along a stripper pole. Later, after making his lascivious offer for Claudio's freedom, Angelo snaps in a sudden burst of violence. He sweeps the desk clear of its contents and slams Isabella down upon it, tearing her skirt. He then rips open her blouse and mounts her, whispering his demands in her ear.
Measure for Measure concludes with the less dramatic trial, the stage now brightly lit to contrast Angelo's dungeon, yellow streamers replacing the deputy's scarlet banners, and the dangling metal hoop now a decorative yin-and-yang symbol to celebrate the return of the Duke. Isabella is articulate, impassioned and beautiful, the only "saint" among an array of "sinners," dressed severely in skirt and jacket with a crucifix around her neck. She mirrors Angelo's outward prudishness, standing stiffly still, her hands clasped together.
Rubin's conclusion of Measure for Measure is somewhat lightened by the comeuppance of Lucio - the manic pimp comically pushes and kicks people aside in his desperation to get to the stage and toady to the Duke - but the resolution is tinged with unhappiness. The Duke rips Angelo's medals from his uniform and Lucio is stricken at the prospect of marriage to a prostitute, an obese, heavily made-up woman in fishnet stockings, holding the hand of a little girl who calls out to him, "Daddy!" But the final stage picture is uneasy and ominous, and the Duke's sudden advances upon Isabella - her victory short-lived - results in a fading spotlight on her expression of horror at ordeals that will soon begin anew.
Note: A version of this article was edited and published in Shakespeare Bulletin, Vol.24, No.1, Spring 2006.