Measure for Measure

Synopsis: Video recording of Michael Bogdanov’s 1985 modern dress production of Measure for Measure for the Stratford (Ontario) Shakespeare Festival. Alan Scarfe is Duke Vincentio and Barbara March is Isabella.
Language: English
Country: Canada
Medium: Video
Technical information: Colour / Sound
Recording date: 29 May 1985

Theatre: Festival Theatre, Stratford, Ontario
Theatre company: Stratford Shakespeare Company, Ontario
Production type: Stage Recordings
Historical period: Contemporary
Plays: Measure for Measure
Subjects: Drama
Keywords: Shakespeare, William (1564-1616); Stratford (Ontario) Shakespeare Festival

History: The production played in repertory 29 May-8 August 1985.
Stills: `Director Michael Bogdanov’s Measure for Measure interprets Shakespeare’s vexing comedy as a Machiavellian-Freudian world where precise form and ceremony merely gild our dark, libidinous appetites. The platform thrust begins as transvestite cabaret and conventionally dressed supposed audience members are invited on stage to participate in the skin-and-leather high jinks. Bogdanov quickly creates a decadent world of deceiving appearances and implicates the proper middle-class auditors in its corruption’. [Brady, op cit].
Reviews: Weil, Herbert S., Jr. Shakespeare Quarterly 37 (1986): 245-50 (in review article).

Brady, Owen E. Theatre Journal 37 (1985): 506-9 (in review article).

British Universities Film & Video Council