Measure for Measure

Thursday night we attended a play at Grace College put on by the Actors From the London Stage theatre company. I have never seen a live Shakespeare performance. This one was somewhat different from your period costumes and sets.

Actors From the London Stage is a traveling company that puts on workshops and seminars at academic institutions twice a year. This troupe consisted of five actors. As the professor introducing the play said, "They use whatever props and costumes they can fit into a suitcase."

Each actor plays multiple people; the audience is cued in by a scarf, a hat, a boa, a cloak, etc. as to which person is speaking. Sometimes a single actor's multiple characters engage in dialogue with each other.  This amuses the audience at first as the actor pivots or crosses the stage and puts on his "costume" (often a hat) to face the other character. The only time I had confusion was with the Escalus/Provost/Justice character. The costume prop was not distinctive enough, and I didn't always know which character was speaking the lines. 

Lacking elaborate costumes and sets to draw the audience in to the play required superb acting so those watching used imagination to fill in the "blanks". Truly, this was professional theatre. The program mentioned that there is no director so the actors must decide among themselves as they rehearse and perform how they want to portray the scene and characters with the minimal equipment they have. They come from various British theatres and usually have not worked together before.

Measure for Measure was not a Shakespeare play I had read previously or studied in high school or college. I guess it is a comedy though it has its tinge of darkness when condemned Claudio and the friar look at the "benefits" of death over life. Claudio who started out sitting on the ground upright sunk lower and lower and finally shed tears as they discussed his coming death. I occasionally had trouble understanding this actor's lines, but this emotion needed no words. There is a synopsis of the play on the AFTLS link above. It questions the Old Testament idea of "an eye for an eye" vs mercy.

It was an enjoyable evening.

I just finished cooking some Paula Red apples into applesauce. They had mushed up in other dishes where I wanted slices; ideal for making into sauce. Naturally sweet, too, so I added no sugar just some cinnamon. In fact I included one tart Granny Smith apple to balance the sweetness a little. We will eat the applesauce tonight with pork chops.