Eugene Kusterer

Measure for Measure Eugene Kusterer

This "problem play" NEEDN'T BE! The ALL CLEAR! SHAKESPEARE project takes on the challenge. We eschew the obvious (but unsatisfying) solution of rendering the entire text into prose. Oops! - "Eschew?" Now that's the sort of word for which ALL CLEAR would find an alternative. But find an alternative for the rhythms and sometime rhymes of the poetry? No, No! Not with prose. So much of the pleasure would be lost. Keep the iambs; keep the pentameter; keep the rhymes and the couplets. Lose the obscurity! You might call this a translation -- but from English to English! This play -Measure for Measure - is not as popular with audiences as, say, Romeo and Juliet. But the twists and turns of the plot are even more fascinating, as the Duke finds a way to spy on his deputy's efforts to clean up Viennese vice. Having a convent postulant go to bed with a not-so-angelic-Angelo, Deputy Do-Good, is a bit novel! The language is rich; and the language is even brutal at times. But then the play itself is, in Harold Bloom's words, rancid, savagely bitter, blasphemous. Now wait a minute - Bloom also characterizes it as a "wild scherzo." Surely you're enticed!