{"id":1659,"date":"2018-10-15T11:58:07","date_gmt":"2018-10-15T10:58:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/?p=1659"},"modified":"2018-10-15T14:34:03","modified_gmt":"2018-10-15T13:34:03","slug":"scream","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/2018\/10\/scream.html","title":{"rendered":"Scream"},"content":{"rendered":"

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My pal went into the Donmar\u2019s Measure for Measure<\/em><\/a> expecting a fight. She\u2019d read that Josie Rourke\u2019s production presents the cut-down text twice. The first, set at the time of Shakespeare\u2019s 1604 premiere, where deputy governor Angelo attempts to coerce soon-to-be-nun Isabella into sex to save her brother\u2019s life. The second, set today \u2013 same plot but with a female minister harassing a young man.<\/p>\n

Pal was having none of it. To suggest that power trumps gender is nonsense, she fumed. Women with authority don\u2019t exploit it in that way. What would the switch prove? Fight fight fight!<\/em><\/p>\n

Guess what: it doesn\u2019t play that way. The first act is streamlined \u2013 the second is incendiary. Repetition adds a layer of complexity and strips away a layer of skin. It\u2019s impossible not to flash on the recent supreme court hearings, when Christine Blasey Ford held tight to composure, modesty and sweet reason \u2013 and still lost ground to ranting male grandstanding. Rourke\u2019s Measure<\/em> demonstrates that there seems to be no version of female sexuality \u2013 of female identity \u2013 that will protect a woman in the public realm.<\/p>\n

We should all be screaming<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2018Who will believe thee, Isabel?\u2019 Angelo\u2019s line is one we\u2019re still living with. In 1604, Jack Lowden\u2019s Angelo keeps the Provost in the room when he lays out his sleazeball terms to Isabella (Hayley Atwell). Why? Because he can. Because a guy in power can allow a witness to his sexual coercion \u2013 a senior member of the judicial system at that \u2013 and casually disempower him. Atwell repeatedly looks round at Adam McNamara\u2019s Provost, but he avoids her eye. He can\u2019t speak, let alone speak up, and when Angelo leaves the room, trots after like an obedient terrier.<\/p>\n

The truth emerges in Shakespeare\u2019s last scene: but justice? Barely. The duke (Nicholas Burns), who has pushed events to horrible extremes, for dubious motives, offers Isabella marriage, even as the extent of his manipulation becomes clear. Atwell, in her mushroomy cap and gown, screams. Shakespeare doesn\u2019t give her any lines, and, honestly, what else can she do? The scream lands briefly like a blessing: some of us have been waiting for an outraged scream for years.<\/em> We should all be fucking screaming. But Rourke lets it hang in the air for just a second before we\u2019re propelled into the present. Because catharsis is a luxury we don’t have, not now.<\/p>\n

From the first moment we see 2018\u2019s Atwell in her managerial garb \u2013 severe black with complicated sleeves \u2013 we realise the dynamic of the story, theoretically identical, will be utterly upended. When Jacobean Angelo is asked to stand in for the duke, ahead of the more experienced Escalus, Lowden can\u2019t suppress a smirk. He fingers the chain of office with complacent pleasure. So young, and so entitled. Atwell\u2019s modern figure looks worried: \u2018Let there be some more test made of my metal\u2019 is a genuine concern. Female self-doubt is culturally hardwired. She has surely worked harder than all the men around her to get here (the bar, you suspect, is set low), she hefts a pile of files and folders in front of her like body armour. Still the Provost huffs when she asks him to do something.<\/p>\n

Payback is nasty<\/strong><\/p>\n

Authority is difficult, sex is all peril: the combination is toxic for all concerned. Modern Isabella fancies the vulnerable Angelo (here reimagined as a member of a cleansing Christian movement) and it occurs to her that she can do what blokes have done for 400 years. It\u2019s just as abhorrent as the Jacobean manoeuvre \u2013 Isabella even offers a derisive flicker of little-lady waterworks, to demonstrate how she\u2019ll rebut any comeback. She thinks she\u2019s safe with the crimson lanyard of high office around her neck. She isn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

For this Isabella, payback is nasty. Everyone\u2019s on a mobile throughout the modern scenes, and a cameraphone must have been lurking as Isabella screwed the man she took for Angelo \u2013 in reality, her vengeful ex. Revenge porn turns the tables: it\u2019s not just Isabella\u2019s deception that is revealed (and shared \u2013 ping! \u2013 with absolutely everyone in an instant) but the shame of being a sexual woman, a woman who thought she had control. Jacobean Angelo is humbled; modern Isabella is utterly humiliated.<\/p>\n

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Ben Allen, with phone, as Frederick. Photo: Manuel Harlan<\/p><\/div>\n

As Rourke identifies, masculinity is just as firmly policed, just as fucked. Aberrant women are punished with shame, men with ridicule. The modern Angelo\u2019s sexuality is considered suspect \u2013 Claudio doesn\u2019t quite get why his brother can\u2019t just fuck Isabella and spring him from prison. Lowden arrives at the final showdown high on indignation, chanting for justice and waving a banner \u2013 but as all is revealed, the onlookers giggle when he describes being harassed by a woman. What kind of man admits to vulnerability?<\/p>\n

Look too at the differing treatments of the deputy\u2019s still-hurting ex. In 1604, Mariana (Helena Wilson) hacks at an apple, then turns the blade on her own thigh. In 2018, Frederick (Ben Allen) sketches and cries, remembering Isabella while listening to \u2018their\u2019 song. The audience sits silent at the self-harming woman, but snickers at a weeping bloke. I don\u2019t think the production invites that response \u2013 that\u2019s us doing that.<\/p>\n

Rourke has always been good at nailing supporting characters in Shakespeare \u2013 it\u2019s what made her Much Ado About Nothing<\/em><\/a> feel so true. Here, most actors offer two distinct versions of the same characters in their two worlds. Sule Rimi\u2019s terrific Claudio is a dignified victim in the first act, but in the second a bro affronted at having his privilege checked. After his arrest, he jokes with the Provost in #lads complicity. Stray lines retained in the condensed text that sound slightly odd in 1604 become scalpel precise in 2018. As when Escalus mentions that he knew Claudio\u2019s father \u2013 of course<\/em> he did \u2013 or when he invites the Provost to dinner, in the immemorial tone of chaps who carve up the world over steak and claret.<\/p>\n

The sheer cumulative intelligence of this production gives me goosebumps. And the very end is sober as can be. Atwell returns to her convent garb. She doesn’t scream \u2013 instead, with bitter poise she addresses not Angelo but the Duke, the patriarchy made smug and suffocating flesh. Yeah, I\u2019d like a sense of release, I\u2019d like a scream \u2013 we all would. When we will get one?<\/p>\n

Top: Jack Lowden and Hayley Atwell. Photo: Manuel Harlan.<\/em><\/p>\n

Follow David on Twitter: <\/em>@mrdavidjays<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My pal went into the Donmar\u2019s Measure for Measure expecting a fight. She\u2019d read that Josie Rourke\u2019s production presents the cut-down text twice. The first, set at the time of Shakespeare\u2019s 1604 premiere, where deputy governor Angelo attempts to coerce soon-to-be-nun Isabella into sex to save her brother\u2019s life. The second, set today \u2013 same […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1661,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[143,563,560,32,34],"class_list":{"0":"post-1659","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-donmar","9":"tag-hayley-atwell","10":"tag-josie-rourke","11":"tag-shakespeare","12":"tag-theatre","13":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1659"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1659\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1665,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1659\/revisions\/1665"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1661"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}