TANGLED JUSTICE, MORAL SWAMPS
There is no sure hero in Shakespeare’s ‘mystery play” , which can be exhilarating. Emily BUrns’ remarkably sure-footed, clear and well-trimmed production, in a stark monochrome moden set of stairs and benches, certainly is. And although its plot is based on concepts of sexual sin (meaning before marriage) which we do not in 2025 condemn, she exhilaratingly starts it with a brief video montage of Clinton, Epstein, Trump, Prince Andrew, Rubiales, Hancock etc. Sexual sin never goes right out of date, just changes clothes.
Plot in brief: the Duke, feeling “we have let slip old values” , heads off disguised as a cleric and leaves the lean, mean priggish Angelo in charge, who promptly condemns Claudio to death for getting his fiancee pregnant. Claudio’s sister Isabella, contacted by the lad’s friend Lucio, pleads for his life but Angelo will only grant it if she sleeps with him. She is too virtuous. But the disguised Duke sets it up so Angelo thinks he is having her, but is actually breaking the rules by sleeping with his own fiancee, who he’d discarded for not being rich enough.
And so it goes. Burns keeps it moving fast and merciless, her cast – nearly all RSC debutants, though several well known from TV – are perfect in mood and emotion. Adan James’ good-hearted Duke is wonderful, both in his disguised humiliation being mocked by a laddish Lucio (Douggie MdMeekin). and in his dismayed determination to expose Angelo’s hypocrisy; Isis Hainsworth’s Isabella is superb too, and her scene with Claudio – in his intially desperate attack of timor-mortis – is properly moving, until with rapid subtle self-delusion he suddenly manages to convinced himself that a girl’s virtue is , face it, unimportant next to a man’s life. Oli Higginson does it with horrid clarity; you can see why he was such friends with Lucio the lecher.
But they’re all perfect, not only in confident RSC-level handling of some quite complex texts with clarity but in characterization: right down to ANatasha Jayetileke’s Provost, an irritated functionary hating Angelo’s seizure of his “brief authority” and his irrational condemnation of Claudio . And there’s a magnificent smart-stillettoed turn from Emily Benjamin as Marianna when she agrees to be the substitute for Isabella, especially when she is presented, shuddering,
with a copy of that that innocent aspiring-nun’s long, drooping gingham frock to dress up in.
As for Mothersdale’ s Angelo, he is on–point too: fiddling with his rubber stamps and hole-punches and executive toy (Isabella in her vain pleasing bangs these around a bit), and when he in rising lust decides to proposition her, he displays a wonderful pigeon-toed excitement, a chap uneasy in his trousers. And wow, if you want a good seduction scene, dim-lit and brutal in an entirely unexpected way (girl power!), here it is.
Altogether, the modern setting – blokes in suits behaving atrociously – is more beautifully justified than in many modernizations: especially when Isabella furiously threatens Angelo “I will proclaim you! The world shall know what man thou art!”and he points out that nobody will believe her. And, indeed, in various bits of sophistry employed by almosteveryone except Isabella. So her final moment, no spoilers, though not quite Shakespeare’s intention is wholly 21c in spirit. Bravo!
Rsc.org.uk. To. 25 october
Rating 5
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