Wednesday, November 2, the Honors Department sponsored a trip to the Chicago Shakespeare Theater for a performance of “Measure for Measure.” After a brief lunch stop at Navy Pier, theater-goers nestled in for a rendition of the play set in 1950s Cuba, just before the Cuban Revolution. “Measure for Measure,” generally considered one of Shakespeare’s ‘problem plays’ due to its mix of comedic and dark elements, follows the Duke of Vienna as he steps out of public life to observe the affairs of the city as it is run by his spartan chosen secondary, Angelo. The Duke discovers that Angelo, while ascetic in public, privately attempts to coerce a young nun, Isabella, into having sex with him. The play deals very heavily with issues of consent, judicial hypocrisy, and misogyny, and has been criticized by some modern audiences for its depiction of sexual assault. In an interactive post-production chat with the audience, the actors explained that they and the director had taken the moral issues of the text very seriously, and very intentionally tried to frame and cut the original text in a way to create an ethical, relevant, performance. Regarding this attempt, T Bruggemann (senior, computer science and physics) said: “The material they were working with is very problematic, but they performed it well and the setting and theming of it in Cuba was very interesting, and also very thought-through in how it related to the original play.”
One notable adaptive change in the production was the inclusion of several new pieces of music, staged at the beginning as an introduction to the play. Alex Navarro (senior, math and physics) explained his impression of this adaptive choice thusly: “I think the primary purpose of the music was to immerse us into the story. Also, it provided a memorable experience besides what was just in the original script. It highlighted the specific parts of the new setting that they put the play in, and that also really helped immerse us in this new (for most) cultural background.” In addition to immersion and contextualizing, the music also provided some helpful character descriptions, as Madison Vath (sophomore, English) described: “I thought the choice to add in music was really interesting, especially because Claudio [one of the central characters] used his first song as kind of an exposition to introduce some of the characters, which I thought was really neat. From my little knowledge of Shakespeare productions, there is not often a lot of music, so this was an interesting choice—especially in light of the setting.”
Overall, the outing seemed to be very enjoyable for many students. Yoel Kim (junior, physics and math studies) summarized briefly: “I really appreciated the moment to explore and vibe at Navy Pier, and I loved the fact that we were able to talk to the actors after the play. That was fun and their insight was very interesting. I also thought it was cool how high-end the event was—there was a lot of effort put into production and acting.”
The return to live productions post-Covid has been greatly anticipated by many honors students, and with such a successful outing, perhaps we may see more in the future.
The Student Movement is the official student newspaper of 老司机传媒. Opinions expressed in the Student Movement are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors, 老司机传媒 or the Seventh-day Adventist church.