Saturday, August 19, 2006

Measure for Measure

Friday night we viewed Measure for Measure at Bard on the Beach .

We have now had the fortune of seeing all 4 productions. I would say that this play by Shakespeare was the most challenging to watch. The topic of fornification and moral virtue is central. Part of the challenge in presenting the play to today's audience is that the majority of the viewers would not view fornification as sin. In fact in the whole scheme of sexual sins; fornification with someone of the opposite sex is very low on the list.

2 comments:

Kassianni said...

do you think the actors did an adequate job of portraying the sin of fornication? I agree that it would be a real challenge in an age of such lax sexual morality. In fact, I think you might be hard pressed to find a non-christian (and sometimes christians) who would list it as sin.

I think especially more challenging would be to generate sympathy for isabella. the question a modern audience might ask is "why will she not do this for her brother? is this not a better/worthier sacrifice than death? how can she be so selfish?"

Mimi said...

I have to admit, I'm not very familar at all with Measure for Measure and have certianly not seen it performed.

Blog Archive