Summary 
Novel approach to a problematic comedy dispenses with the core focus of sexual harassment by Angelo, instead focusing on the adventures of the disguised Duke. The lead performance is quite engaging but often seems to be the highlight of, well, the wrong play altogether, while a slew of supporting performances are colorfully memorable.
Design
Directed by Martha Henry. Designed by John Pennoyer. Lighting design by Steven Hawkins. Compositions and sound design by Todd Charlton.
Cast
Geraint Wyn Davies (Duke), Peter Hutt (Escalus), Tom Rooney (Angelo), Stephen Ouimette (Lucio), Stephen Russell (Provost), Christopher Prentice (Claudio), Ruby Joy (Juliet), Patricia Collins (Mistress Overdone), Randy Hughson (Pompey), Brian Tree (Elbow), Carmen Grant (Isabella), Sarah Afful (Mariana), E.B. Smith (Abhorson), Robert Persichini (Barnardine).
Analysis
Martha Henry's production of Measure For Measure - at the black-box Patterson Theatre for the Stratford Festival - is an eccentric blend of late 1940s film noir style and rampant moral decadence dosed with stylish but over-the-top comedy. In this production, Henry focuses not on the central sexual harassment conflict between the newly appointed Angelo and the virginal nun Isabella, but instead on Geraint Wyn Davies' dynamic Duke Vincentio, who begins as an appropriately seedy pervert but by interval has become a situation-comedy television star reveling in another delicious adventure, jumping atop a 3.2 bench to raise a fist in triumph then leap backward to the stage with an impish smile. Davies seems as if he might gift the audience with a Benny Hill-wink, if Henry would only let him.
Henry begins 1.1 as a clubbing-attired woman emerges deep upstage in an apparent walk of shame, beginning to disrobe and reveal herself as a man. The peroxide blonde is attired in a snug royal blue gown, long formal black gloves, and high heels, and once downstage he peels away a latex mask to show the smirking face of the Duke. When Davies' Duke changes into the clothes of a politician - one leaving upon vacation, with suitcase and a neck-strapped camera - soldiers gather around him as if secret service protection, and he pulls on a topcoat before he greets the just-rousted bed-headed Angelo and Escalus.
Despite the Duke's decadence, the sense of the production being the Duke's Big Adventure continues with his self-pleased 1.3 direction - "disguise me with a habit" - as he takes the wire spectacles from a priest and pulls on a friar's brown robes: "hence we shall see...what our seemers be." Davies' disguised Duke arrives at Claudio's dungeon cell 2.3 and sits in a chair 3.1, facing away from the prisoner and his sister, but obviously listening in on and reacting to their drama. He accepts Isabella's embrace and lays out a plan - "virtue is bold" - concluding with an oddly staccato and high-pitched Elmer Fudd laugh. After avoiding being recognized by Escalus 3.2, Davies' grinning Duke is truly enjoying himself as he arrives at Mariana's island home 4.1 aboard a mini-gondola downstage left, guided by a driver with an oar, accompanied by splashing waves sound effects. While Mariana and Isabella change clothes to attempt the trickery of Angelo, Davies plays to the audience, fanning his crotch with his woolly friar's robes, then moaning as he helps himself to cheese and grapes from a serving table, and he gargles from a cup of tea, stuffs cheese into his pockets, and piously leaves behind a single grape. The scene adds little to the story other than the self-indulgence of the Duke, but it lightens an already surprisingly jovial mood for such a problematic interpersonal drama.
Henry evokes 1.2 Venetian decadence with late 1940s costuming, an almost film noir sense of shadowy lighting, and low volume speaking voices. Upstage pillars and columns have flyers and notices posted to them, and center stage a beggar in a patched and ragged coat leads a basset hound on a leash, while the sunglasses-wearing Lucio sips tea and is served by a black-vested waiter with a cigarette dangling from his lip. More familiar characters include a ghastly Mistress Overdone with a gnarly smoker's rasp and a poison-green wrap over her low-cut neon-purple dress. Once arrested 3.2, she hisses at the jailer like a vicious witch, raising her fingers like cat's claws to threaten him. The pregnant Juliet sits 1.2 in dingy white sneakers plus blue skirt and hat, bundled shivering into a winter coat. The Provost has her spit her chewing gum into his palm as if he is a stern grade-school principal, but he kindly brings her a glass of drinking water. The almost wordless portrayal by Stephen Russell of not just an honorable gentleman but a good person in authority shines like a beacon, perhaps as Henry intends, in glaring relief against the decadence and selfishness of the city. Russell's Provost gently guides Isabella to Angelo's office 2.2, brings a blanket for Juliet 2.3 followed by a cup of tea, and is the first person the disguised Friar reveals himself to, in 4.3.
Also notable in a physical if nearly wordless role, is Brian Tree as Elbow, a stiffly serious little policeman hyper-focused on rules and doing a proper job. He struts onstage straight-armed in a duck-waddle military march, snaps off a heel click then a stiff-armed salute for Angelo and tucks his baton under one arm with parade-ground precision. His reluctance to discuss the distasteful - "f-f-f-fornication" is sputtered in a stutter - causes the newly deputized Angelo to dryly bemoan, "this will last out a night in Russia." The comically serious expression on Tree's face draws laughter, and there is even more when he refuses to sit before Angelo does, and the two engage in an Abbott-and-Costello start-and-stop routine, bending and straightening again and again before doing the same with their parting, Angelo offering a handshake and Elbow saluting, then they each try the other way, over and over, to the audience's delight. When Angelo shows him out upstage, the two clap each other on the back with endearment, and Tree's scene-stealing Elbow exits left before returning moments later to - of course - cross back the other way to stage right.
Henry downplays the typically central conflict between Isabel and Angelo. Carmen Grant's Isabella is suitably prim and fervent but plain and lacking in allure, and Tom Rooney's Angelo - "whose blood is snow broth" - is a disinterested workaholic who seems to have no interest in Isabella apart from an opportunity to subjugate. Their 2.2 interaction is quietly underplayed and fairly undramatic, the only tension injected by Stephen Ouimette's Lucio - "that's well said" - even as Isabella begs on her knees. Rooney's Angelo treats Isabella like the usual citizenry, dragging a chair to center stage far from his desk as if he is germophobic, explaining his lack of empathy in a curt monotone: "the law is not dead though it has slept." After some outrage - "how, bribe me?" - he drops his law books and whips off his eye glasses to sit in Isabella's chair after she exits - "is this her fault or mine...the tempter or the tempted" - bringing the interval with an unconvincing moment.
Angelo's lust for Isabella is played weakly 2.4, with him responding to her innocuous "I've come to know your pleasure" by turning away and wiping his face, then kneeling beside her. When he assaults her against his desk it is more an uncomfortable overture than an invasive mauling. Rooney's Angelo seems more interested in wielding his power - "who will believe thee?" and "I will prove a tyrant" - than defiling the innocent, and he clicks his heels in almost Fascist fashion - "my false outweighs your true" - as he struts offstage.
Angelo and Isabella are certainly overshadowed by the lead role of Davies' devious Duke, but are also outshined by most of the supporting performances. Randy Hughson's Pompey, for example, steals 2.1 with his devil-may-care confidence, bald and bearded and bloodied across his temple, stubbing out the butt of his cigarette in an ashtray on Angelo's desk, then leaning conspiratorially across it before he is is escorted upstage. Hughson's Pompey pauses and bends way over, wiggling his fingers to wave goodbye to Rooney's stoic Angelo, his face upside down between his legs. Elbow must drag him off to jail 3.2 by his foot, and in 4.3 he mops prison floors with an expression of horror at the antics of Abhorson and Barnardine. The latter two characters come across as cartoonish and overblown, but still more interesting and exciting than Isabella or Angelo. Abhorson is a goateed zombie-like doctor in a white lab coat with stethoscope and black glasses that reveal staring glaring eyes. He moves in something of a smooth glide that seems as if he is levitating from the ground. Barnardine is the opposite, a ghoulish beast in rags and greasy long gray hair. His voice booms in an amplified 4.2 growl, and when he emerges from a stage trap as if in an ascension from hell, he rudely shoves a friar down to his hands and knees like a dog.
Ouimette's street-cool pimp Lucio is an expertly performed character, a Huggy-Bear-in-John-Lennon-glasses lowlife, jumping at the chance to be important in aiding Isabella or insulting the Duke's character to the supposed Friar 3.2. Ouimette's Lucio wipes away Isabella's tears 4.3 before revealing to the Friar that he has abandoned a pregnant girlfriend, and in 5.1 he pushes his way to a bench in the first row of the audience to bear witness to the Duke's return. Henry moves quickly to what is usually a slowly paced and exposition-heavy Act 5, with quick glimpses of Escalus at the iron gates 4.4, holding an umbrella away from himself to protect the waiting Angelo from rainfall, then the Duke himself 4.5, removing his robes and returning the borrowed spectacles to the face of the helpful priest, finally to Mariana arriving 4.6, her face concealed behind a colorful veil.
Always a difficult play to stage - "problem comedy," indeed - with a multitude of textures and themes and moods, Henry concludes her production like a television murder mystery unraveled by the ingenious detective Duke. Davies' Duke returns upstage to triumphant applause 5.1, wearing a cream military overcoat with a gray sash and an array of medals, and he solemnly takes the hands of both Angelo and Escalus with a humble smile of gratitude. He orders directors' chairs to the stage for Angelo and Escalus to hear Isabella's complaint, sneering at Lucio's frequent interruptions before exiting then returning as the mysterious hooded Friar. The tying up of loose ends has a perfunctory feel - Lucio yanks off his robes to reveal him as the Duke, Angelo is sent offstage to marry Mariana, Claudio is revealed alive as a hooded prisoner - and even the Duke's proposal of marriage to Isabella - awkward! - is played without menace and is quickly dismissed and forgotten. The ending, sometimes played as tragic or at least foreboding, is in Henry's hands all smiles: the Duke forgives and even embraces Angelo, and after Barnadine's creepy leer at Mistress Overdone draws some laughter, the Duke shakes everyone's hands like an expert politician. The whole cross-dressing scene seems completely forgotten - perhaps it is conquered through the Duke's adventure - at the very least under-developed. When Davies' Duke offers his hand - this time, literally - to Isabella, she takes it with a smile and no hesitation, and the production concludes - quite surprisingly - on a resoundingly happy note.