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Measure
for Measure

By William Shakespeare
Adapted & Directed by Benedict Andrews

  • Venue Upstairs Theatre
  • Dates 5 June – 25 July 2010

    Winner of three 2010 Sydney Theatre Awards including
    Best Mainstage Production
    Best Direction
     (Benedict Andrews)
    Best Stage Design (Ralph Myers with Sean Bacon)

    This is a permissive, decaying city with a dysfunctional government, and the Duke has mysteriously gone on leave. In his place he’s appointed a man whose “urine is congealed ice” – the austere moralist Angelo. His first act of law is to apply the death penalty for fornication: Claudio is the first to be condemned. But when Isabella arrives to beg for her brother’s life, her pleas threaten to bring Angelo and the state to their knees.

    Measure for Measure is Shakespeare’s great dark comedy about desire and power. His world is familiar: sex is a commodity, government is subject to the leader’s moral whimsy, extreme liberality goes head to head with emergency powers to constrain and punish. And lurking in the shadows of this play is the idea that real wisdom comes from unleashed chaos.

    Benedict Andrews was last at Belvoir St in 2007 with his brilliant production of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?. He’s returned to tackle a play he’s probably born to direct: Shakespeare’s magnificent and explicit meditation on anarchy and authority.

    Theatre for the open-minded.

    Team

    By William Shakespeare
    Adapted & Directed by Benedict Andrews
    Set Designer Ralph Myers
    Costume Designer Dale Ferguson
    Lighting Designer Nick Schlieper
    Composer & Sound Designer Stefan Gregory
    Video Designer & Operator Sean Bacon
    Assistant Director Duncan Graham
    Sound Operator Jeremy Silver
    Assistant Lighting Designer Tom Willis
    Floor Technician Jonathan Yeoman
    Stage Manager Nell Ranney
    Assistant Stage Manager Mel Dyer

    Cast

    Maeve Dermody
    Damon Gameau
    Ashley Lyons
    Robin McLeavy
    Robert Menzies
    Arky Michael
    Colin Moody
    Steve Rodgers
    Chris Ryan
    Toby Schmitz
    Helen Thomson
    Frank Whitten

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