A RARE PLAY

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 21, 25 July 1927, Page 5

A RARE PLAY

SHAKESPEARE SEASON

"MEASURE FOR MEASURE"

"The plot is of too unpleasant a character to suit it to the modern stage." This verdict on Shapespeare's "Measure For Measure," taken from a standard book of the "Victorian age, is evidently not binding on modernity as we know it to-day, for —here is the play staged by the Allan Wilkie Shakespeare Company, and drawing a crowded house on Saturday night to the Grand Opera House. What ia the plot complained of? It centres in the ancient death penalty for the authois ot illicit love—a penalty generally reserved for the -woman, but in this case Shakespeare has chosen to treat of it as a penalty not for the woman, but for the man. In Shakespearian language, the play echoes the New Testament story of the woman taken in transgression, on that occasion when Christ called, on the man without sin to throw the first stone. Briefly, "Measure For Measure" tells of a wholly fictitious Vienna, in which State the reigning Duke, having allowed this particular form of death penalty to lapse for fourteen or more years, astutely retires from the throne awhile and appoints a deputy to revive and re-apply the law, selecting as the deputy one Angelo, who, to all outward appearance, is "a man of stricture and firm abstinence," "whose blood is. very snow-broth," and who apparently is most •competent to hang the incontinent without coming under suspicion of incontinence himself. Accepting the Duke's charge, Angelo sentences to death one Claudio (lover of Juliet) and, when urged to pity, replies: When I, that censure him, do so offend, Let mine own judgment pattern out my ■ death, And nothing come in partial . . . But when Claudio's sister Isabella pleads for her brother's life; Angelo proves to be an idol, with feet of clay, for presently he offers Isabel her brother's freedom conditional on her own shame. Having become privy to all this by an intervention in disguise, the Duke traps Angelo beyond all escape by causing Isabella to make with Angelo an assignation winch is kept by another woman (Mariana, Angelo's former betrothed, but rejected by him), by which substitution Angelo's guilt is established, but not at the expense of Isabella. Mariana's part'in the proceedings is excused by her infatuation for a faithless fiance, and for the same reason Angelo's head is spared, and in the finish everyone is married, no one hanged. Mr. Allan Wilkie presented Angelo as a man with complete confidence in his own self-control up to the time when passion is stirred in him by the pleading form of Isabella. Until then, Angelo has an honest—though' snobblish, vain, and intolerant—idea of doing public service by being; both exemplar and executioner; and though his honesty thereafter is completely submerged, he has the dignity, after detection, to .ask" for death sentence as his portion. Mr. Wilkie played . a difficult- part well. The Isabella presented by Miss Hunter-Watts includes a delicate rendering of a situation in which a pure woman, swayed by the. agonised pleas of a death-fearing brother, and urged on by his libertine advocate, Lucio, has to go to ■ extremities of appeal in which she must almost appear, in Angelo's eyes, as temptress. High artistry makes the effort a success, and no less can be s rid i ,of Mr: ■Denis .Barry's impersonation of the abject brother Claudio. Mr. I'rank Clewlow, as the fantastic Lucio, was cast in a role different from those he mostly appears in, with no 1 diminution of his excellent record as a Shakespearian actor. The fun-makers were Messrs. Milton Sands (Elbow), Arthur Kean (the clown), and Herbert Sheldrick (Froth), also Miss Mona Duval (Mistress Overdone). Miss Dulcie Sherry was Juliet Miss Lorna Forbes, Marianna; and Messrs. John Cairns and William Lockhart ably tiled the important roles of the Duke and Escalus.

In response to an ovation following the fall of the curtain, Mr. Allan Wilkie, in and well-received address, said This, is. the fifth and last of our new productions in this country of Shakespeare s plays, and we count it a great privilege to have been able to present them for the first time, we believe in the If the efforts of Miss Hunter-Watts and himself, and of his company, had in any way advanced the appreciation and interpretation of Shnkespeare, they were well repaid. (Applause.) 10-mght Measure For Measure" will be repeated. To-morrow night will be staged 'Hamlet," on Wednesday "Twelfth Night, which marks the close of the season.