Well, it's high time for some more Shakespeare around here and this year's choice for a comedy was Measure for Measure though this turned out to be another of Shakespeare's "problem plays" meaning it read more tragic than comedic. As I got deeper and deeper into the madness, I felt like Measure for Measure was a definite tragedy on par with Othello, but I guess since no one dies in the end, the First Folio people gave it the comedy stamp and so it remains to this day.
We open upon Duke Vincentio of Vienna cutting out and leaving the kingdom in the self-righteous iron fists of Angelo. Apparently, Vincentio has let things go to pot and Angelo has taken it upon himself to restore order starting with arresting Claudio and sentencing him to death for getting his girlfriend pregnant.
Only Claudio is actually a pretty upstanding guy and everyone is outraged that he's on death row. Vienna is one big party town and unlike most of the philandering men around the block, Claudio is a one-woman man and the only reason Juliet isn't already his wife is because of a legal technicality. Like, basically they're just waiting on the paperwork to clear.
When Claudio's friend Lucio finds out what's happened, he rushes off to find Claudio's sister Isabella who is in a convent on the brink of becoming a full-fledged nun. He begs her to go to Angelo and get her brother off the hook. Why Isabella is the only qualified candidate for this job, I'm still not sure, but away she goes to try to talk sense into Angelo.
She and Angelo get into it, and evidently, Isabella is so super-fine that Angelo can barely contain himself and by the end of their debate, he tells Isabella that he'll let Claudio off and lasso her the moon and anything else she wants if she'll just sleep with him one time.
You see what's happening here, right? He's got Claudio going to the chopping block for the very crime that he's all hot and heavy to commit with Isabella.
Isabella tells him exactly what he can do to himself and threatens to out him to the entire city; Angelo responds by totally gaslighting her. Because who's going to believe this little girl over Mr. Law-and-Order?
What a scumbag.
Isabella heads straight to her brother in jail and is all, "My dude, say your prayers and man up to meet your Maker because I would rather die myself than give up my innocence." To which Claudio is all, "No doubt, I would kill that guy myself if I wasn't locked up." But after two more seconds changes his tune to, "Would it really be the worst thing?" And Isabella is all, "Get ahold of yourself!"
Meanwhile, some random friar that's been skulking around town and hanging out in the jail overhears everything and takes Isabella aside for a chat. But is it really a random friar? Of course not. It's Duke Vincentio in disguise because he never had any business to attend to out of town. He just wanted to shake off the yoke of responsibility for a while and let Angelo mete out some justice of biblical proportions while he watches undercover, I guess.
So he pulls Isabella aside and tells her that she should go back to Angelo and agree to do the nasty with him as long as he consents to meet her in the dead of night and keep his mouth shut the whole time. To which Isabella replies, "Does anyone even know what a conscience is?" And then Friar Duke is all, "No, no; we'll send this chick Mariana who's in love with Angelo." And Isabella is all, "Seriously? I wouldn't send any other woman to degrade herself in this way either." But then Friar Duke explains that Mariana is actually Angelo's fiancée and he owes it to her to marry her but has declined to fulfill his commitment ever since her dowry was lost at sea. So Isabella's like, "Oh, I guess it's fine then."
What?!
So Mariana goes off and has her little incognito fling with Angelo.
But then Angelo sends a message to the prison ordering Claudio's execution to commence immediately.
MEGA-SCUMBAG.
When Friar Duke gets word of this, he then concocts a plan to execute some other poor schmuck who looks like Claudio and send his head to Angelo instead. Which they do. And then he tells Isabella (who thinks her brother was just beheaded) and Mariana (who just entrapped Angelo) to go plead their case to the Duke (aka HIMSELF) who's arriving back in town any minute.
He then does a quick wardrobe change and makes his grand entrance into Vienna. So now we've got a nice little audience for Isabella and Mariana to rat out Sir Scumbag. They air their grievances and Angelo is all, "They're both crazy." And Duke Vincentio is like, "Unless you can present this friar, you're both liars."
At which point of the play I am absolutely raging.
The duke ducks back out and changes back into his friar disguise so he can come back in and verify everything the girls said. To which Angelo is still like, "Why should anyone believe you?" And then Duke Vincentio pulls of his mask and is all, "Gotcha, sucker."
You'd think that right about now we'd string Angelo up the nearest pole, right?
You'd be wrong. Because he gets to live and be married to Mariana, Claudio shows up (to Isabella's profound gratitude) and gets to live happily ever after with Juliet, and Duke Vincentio ups and proposes marriage to Isabella.
No. NO. NO. No.
First of all, I'm so over Shakespeare's mindless, thirsty women who still want the most despicable men even after those men spit in their very faces. Second of all, Angelo should have burned at the stake. He is so gross.
Isabella does not answer Duke Vincentio's marriage proposal. There's a scripted silence which a lot of people interpret to mean she accepts him, but for the sake of my sanity, I have to believe she turns up her nose, marches her little behind back to the convent, and becomes a nun for the rest of her days. SHE HAS TO, RIGHT?
The only truly comedic elements of this play were the little exchanges between Lucio and the duke wherein Lucio is unwittingly bashing the duke to his face while he's disguised as the friar, and then dogs on the friar to the duke not realizing they're the same person—that's funny. Duke Vincentio ultimately "punishes" him by sentencing him to marry some prostitute he knocked up—ummm, not quite as funny.
Y'all. I just can't. Like I said at the beginning, this one was a tragedy for me. It made me more mad than Othello, and I could still spit tacks over that abominable ending. Angelo is the worst, Duke Vincentio not much better, and Mariana is on a level with Helena of women who could do better and ought to know it. Geez.
Personally, I'd call this one of Shakespeare's more compelling plays, but don't read it if you're not ready to rail against the universe for a little while. Hopefully next year's comedy will furnish a few more laughs.
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