{"id":2292,"date":"2015-01-09T01:52:01","date_gmt":"2015-01-09T01:52:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.desdemona.org\/blog\/?post_type=avada_portfolio&p=2292"},"modified":"2025-03-30T06:05:19","modified_gmt":"2025-03-30T06:05:19","slug":"measure-for-measure","status":"publish","type":"avada_portfolio","link":"https:\/\/www.desdemona.org\/blog\/portfolio-items\/measure-for-measure\/","title":{"rendered":"MEASURE FOR MEASURE"},"content":{"rendered":"

MEASURE FOR MEASURE<\/h1><\/div>

by William Shakespeare<\/h2>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>

Seattle Shakespeare Company
\nSeattle, WA<\/h3>\n

Scenic: Phillip Lineau
\nCostumes: Christine Tschirgi
\nLighting: Andrew D. Smith
\nSound: Evan Mosher<\/h4>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>
\n

\u201cDirector Desdemona Chiang is exceedingly comfortable melding bawdy clowning with displays of disturbing avarice in\u00a0Measure for Measure<\/em>. Chiang has established herself as one of Seattle finest directors with her razor-sharp stagings of bleak modern works like\u00a0Gruesome Playground Injuries\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0Red Light Winter<\/em>. Her\u00a0Measure for Measure<\/em>\u00a0is another incisive exercise of tonal control; here, the horrific and the humorous exist simultaneously\u2026\u00a0Thanks to Chiang\u2019s smart direction, the play\u2019s knotty contradictions aren\u2019t allowed to easily untangle. Now that\u2019s how you direct a \u201cproblem play.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/span><\/blockquote>

Dusty Somers<\/strong>, <\/span>BlogCritics<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/div><\/div>
\n

\u201cMeasure for Measure<\/em><\/span>\u00a0bulges with dinner-party taboos and municipal dilemmas. This succinct yet itchy \u201cunfestive comedy,\u201d per my old Bevington edition in college, looks at the distortions and power abuses that result within a society that overregulates human affairs\u2014literally. In this legalistic dystopia, marriage costs money; and by fornicating outside of marriage, you can lose your head\u2014again, literally. The incarceration industry, drugs, prostitution, and other social ills proliferate amid the systemic suppression of biological drive\u2026\u00a0Measure for Measure<\/span><\/em>\u00a0has an unstable ending for a comedy, handled wonderfully by Chiang (with a smart line cut that provides a split-second of sitcom perfection). Lust and justice are perilous companions.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/span><\/blockquote>

Margaret Friedman<\/strong>, <\/span>Seattle Weekly<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/div><\/div>
\n

\u201cWhile people proclaim Measure for Measure Shakespeare\u2019s problem play, and it is not nearly the funniest of his comedies, the current production at Seattle Shakespeare Company hits all the right buttons in the production and makes it as intelligible and justified as it might possibly be\u2026 Director Desdemona Chiang cast a beautifully nuanced group of actors that subtly reinforce other messages Shakespeare might never have intended, but in this production can be pondered and witnessed\u2026 In many ways, the themes of this play can be viewed as some of the most timeless (besides love stories which will never die) of Shakespeare\u2019s canon. We\u2019ll never know monarchies and may not care much about English history, but we all know people with power and how it might be abused, and are confronted on a daily basis with hypocrisies of politicians. This production brings out every nuance of those subjects in a clear, cogent, exciting way.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/span><\/blockquote>

Miryam Gordon<\/strong>, <\/span>Seattle Gay News<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2293,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"portfolio_category":[4],"portfolio_skills":[],"portfolio_tags":[183,130],"class_list":["post-2292","avada_portfolio","type-avada_portfolio","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","portfolio_category-theatre","portfolio_tags-measure-for-measure","portfolio_tags-seattle-shakespeare-company"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.desdemona.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/avada_portfolio\/2292","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.desdemona.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/avada_portfolio"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.desdemona.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/avada_portfolio"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.desdemona.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.desdemona.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2292"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.desdemona.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/avada_portfolio\/2292\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2294,"href":"https:\/\/www.desdemona.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/avada_portfolio\/2292\/revisions\/2294"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.desdemona.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2293"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.desdemona.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"portfolio_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.desdemona.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/portfolio_category?post=2292"},{"taxonomy":"portfolio_skills","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.desdemona.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/portfolio_skills?post=2292"},{"taxonomy":"portfolio_tags","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.desdemona.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/portfolio_tags?post=2292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}