World-renowned Shakespearean actors are attempting one of the bard's most controversial and challenging plays at Penn.
The Shakespeare's Globe Theatre Company performed Measure for Measure in a five-night, six-show staging this weekend at the Annenberg Center.
Critics have historically called the play ambiguous and morally unresolved, but audience members said the show at Penn left little to be desired.
"It was a fresh performance," said audience member and Philadelphia resident Carol Hauptfuhrer. "I thought it was marvelous."
The company, on an American tour from its home stage of the Globe Theatre in London, strictly adheres to the original practices of Elizabethan theater. This includes the use of period stage design and musical interludes between scenes, candle-lighting and elaborate handmade costumes.
"It had such a natural, human element," Hauptfuhrer said.
And true to the originals, the group's shows have an all-male cast, with men playing even female characters.
"The males have done an excellent job of capturing the voice and mannerisms of women," said College freshman Christi Julian during the intermission of Friday's performance.
The performance followed a University Square Dinner and Lecture Series presentation by Theatre Arts and English professor Cary Mazer.
Mazer told a crowd of about 70 three special qualities of this staging of Shakespeare: the play's "problem stigma," the tendency for post-Freudian "emotionalist, psychologized acting" and the Globe Theatre's authentic Elizabethan performance.
During a question-and-answer period following Friday's performance, the cast expounded on Measure for Measure's modern relevance.
Veteran stage performer and former artistic director Mark Rylance cited the play's discussions of power and security as themes that still underlie current events.
Rylance, who is retiring at the end of this year, tied the play to modern politics by saying that "all of us are Angelos and Dukes, and Blairs and Bushes," likening the play's characters to modern leaders.
The audience applauded the cast's comedic touch and vivacity. When asked about the groups lively on-stage interaction, Rylance compared the company's chemistry to that of a "football team."
"It would be very boring if they went out and played an idea or concept," Rylance said. "We make up the staging like a game. We all know where the ball is, the ball being the front point of the story."
