1. ‘Measure for Measure’ has plenty of examples of comedic character, plot and action - but the elements that lead to this are precisely those aspects of the play that gesture towards the important questions of judgement. The Duke’s cleverness is what elicits the comic procession of people kneeling to be forgiven at the end, and yet this scene is pathetic as well as comedic, because it reflects the sinful nature of all of the characters hitherto involved. Isabella’s decision to ‘side’ with Mariana in pleading for Angelo’s life can be played as a humorously reluctant decision, and yet it is desperately serious because it also represents the taking of one’s ‘own medicine’ just as she has advised Angelo to do.
Any audience will find all the elements of the play that are staples of Shakespearean comedy are at exactly the same time gruesome or even tiresome. The bed trick is standard fare, but it raises truly unpleasant questions about the fact that Isabella is willing to allow another person to be defiled, according to her own values. This expedient decision runs in the face of the morality she has espoused earlier in protecting her own dignity.
The variety of approaches to the Duke can seem as disturbing as they are entertaining; many productions have presented him as a dissolute bawd rather like Lucio. It is Lucio...
