Measure for Measure is traditionally considered to be one of William Shakespeare’s “problem” plays, but maybe not for everyone. David Friedman (music) and Peter Kellogg (book and lyrics) have had no problem adapting the later work (1603? 1604?) as a constant smile-inducer of a musical.
Indeed, this year’s Drama Desk awards for “outstanding” music went to Friedman and for “outstanding” lyrics went to Kellogg. Deservedly so. The pickings were slim this season, it has to be admitted, but this tuneful, amusing, constantly surprising score would certainly have held up as super-duper against sterner stuff. (By the way, The Band’s Visit was Drama Desk-eligible last season.)
Shakespeare’s plot is classified as a problem today because novitiate nun Isabella is told she can save her brother Claudio’s life if she agrees to spend a carnal night with Angelo, who’s spelling the absent Duke. She refuses but is spared when Mariana, who thought she was betrothed to Angelo but has run into a hitch, replaces Isabella between the sheets. Eventually, as the rhymed iambic pentameter couplets roll along, everything turns out peachy keen—all troubles solved, except the chastity one that gives 21st century onlookers the creeps.
[Read Michael Sommer’s ★★★ review here.]
Kellogg and Friedman have their contemporary fun placing these figures “somewhere out west” in the 1800s. As these creators have it, Isabella becomes Susanna Blodgett, the about-to-be Sister Mary Jo (Sarah Parnicky), Claudio becomes Johnny Blood (Conor Ryan), the actual Duke becomes Sheriff Martin Green (Peter Saide), Mariana becomes easy-virtue saloon singer Bella Rose (Lauren Molina) and menacing Angelo becomes randy Governor von Richterhenkenpflichtgetruber (Nick Wyman). Stumbling around among them is Father Morse (Gary Marachek), who has a definite drinking problem.
The six comic types mix it up for two acts on Jim Morgan’s big barn set (with signs like “Mane Street” and “Our Lady of the Tumbleweeds” hanging about) while chattering in rhymed iambic pentameter or in various other iambic meters. Typically, their speech leads effortlessly into songs, also of various meters, that raise the comic and the emotional temperature. That’s what songs are supposed to do, of course, but don’t always in too many of today’s musicals.
The ditties that struck this happy spectator as favorites from the nicely crafted others are “Good to Be Alive,” “It’s Getting Hot in Here” and “Just for You”—all three conducted by David Hancock Turner, heading a four-person, eight-instrument band.
None of the songs would click, needless to say, if they weren’t so well performed and sometimes danced under director-choreographer Bill Castellino’s savvy supervision. There’s virtually no end of encomia that can be poured on the cast members’ heads.
In another review, individual praise for the actors might be doled out differently, but in this one Ryan as the hilarious Johnny Blood—né Blodgett, brother to Susanna—gets the first nod. Ryan has a strong voice—who doesn’t in this ensemble?—but he also is physically adept, constantly using his body for clownish punctuation. Watch those rubber-band legs at all times.
Molina—who in a brief prologue sets the scene for the Bard reversal—gets to introduce herself as Rose Bella in the crowd-rousing strip number “It’s Getting Hot in Here.” Hot as she is, she’s immeasurably abetted by Nicole Wee’s costume that incorporates the indigenous Arizona cacti in an eye-popping manner. (Molina, one-half of the The Skivvies, who perform in underwear, is accustomed to scant attire.)
As the Governor with a lengthy name that tries a reviewer’s patience, Wyman steals scenes whenever given the opportunity. Although he’s provided with no mustachios to twirl, he emotes as if he’s got them and is prepared to give them a full workout. He’s so effective he all but makes the audience think the randy governor should get his way. That’s known as top-drawer thesping.
Parnicky and Saide showing this far down here is no comment on their skills. They both do bang-up jobs as shy lovers. On the Kellogg-Friedman love ballads their voices are stellar. Tall and men’s-magazine-cover-handsome Saide demands attention whenever he’s on stage. So does Parnicky, who has comic chops she shows off in a mirror sequence with Molina that neatly recalls the unforgettable one Lucille Ball and Harpo Marx executed on I Love Lucy back in that day. This one has its memorable qualities as well.
And a good word for Marachek, whose inebriation is always a hoot and whose voice is another plus, not least when the entire company pipes up for first-act finale “In the Dark” (not to be confused with Lil Green’s “In the Dark,” the Bobby Short staple) and for the second-act “Life Takes You by Surprise.”
Speaking of being taken by surprise: That indisputably applies to the cleverly titled Desperate Measures. The tuner may be more off-hand with Susanna’s commitment to faith than Isabella is in the Shakespeare original, but that hardly matters when so much good clean fun is on tap. So what if there’s no chastising Mother Abbess present? The sizzling times more than compensate.
Desperate Measures opened June 13, 2018, and runs through October 28 at New World Stages. Tickets and information: desperatemeasuresmusical.com
