Measure for Measure

Muddled Shakespeare dramedy strains to measure up, reproduced with permission from EncoreMichigan.com.

Detroit's Elizabeth Theater Company, reaffirming its dedication to Shakespeare, now returns to the Bard for the second time with "Measure for Measure." In most respects, the production revisits the precedents set by the company's initial 2011 production of "The Tempest," including many of the same actors and creative staff and ringleader Jerry Belanger, director/performer/designer of many hats. Here, however, the rockier source material proves less forgiving in the execution.

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The Tempest

After playing host to outside companies and productions at its upstairs venue, the Park Bar Theater now introduces its own producing company and marks the grand opening with a classic take on William Shakespeare’s The Tempest. Project mastermind, entrepreneur, and venue owner Jerry Belanger also directs the inaugural production, the result of large-scale work and investment that showcases the potential of the space, although its finest achievements of mirth and wonder prove transient rather than continuous.

Now extensively remodeled, the theater represents a Detroit-style makeover of a repurposed raw space: rough walls and exposed conduits are starkly contradicted by a unique teardrop-shaped bar, hardwood floors, and comfortable graduated seating. Any doubts about the technical credentials of the theater are dispersed by sound designers Mikey Brown and Joe Kvoriak’s first cinematically glorious thunderclap and lighting designer Michael Rollo’s inundating lightning. The initial scene throws the audience into the tempest with the passengers and crew of a ship, which founders and casts its inhabitants into the brine — an ingenious set detail by designers Belanger and Rollo helps communicate the mayhem and desperation of tumult at sea that is so difficult to transport to the stage. Unbeknownst to the ship’s inhabitants, who wash up on an island apparently devoid of civilization, this storm was far from a random vagary of the weather. Rather, it was intentionally conjured by the banished duke Prospero (Pat Loos), who has raised daughter Miranda (Katie Terpstra) in seclusion on the island for more than a decade, carefully plotting revenge on his usurpers that is now coming to fruition.

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Much Ado About Nothing

Director Matthew Earnest understands the importance of making Shakespeare feel interesting and fresh to an audience. Still, his Much Ado About Nothing at the Hilberry Theatre may not give the Bard quite enough credit. There’s no questioning the company’s playful mastery of the fussy and ultimately harmless love stories at the base of this comedy, but on the other side of the coin, the director deliberately inserts major obstacles into his interpretation, about which the best that can be said is that the production largely survives them.

Few couples in Shakespeare are as dynamic and fun as fierce combatants Beatrice and Signor Benedick, and Vanessa Sawson and Dave Toomey easily do them justice. The pair is tactically exhaustive, just as likely to wield calculated dismissiveness as a snarling retort; their variation leaves room for fruitful exploration when the characters are duped — or, more accurately, nudged — into falling hard for each other. Love’s more traditional course finds footing in the affably dumbfounded Signor Claudio (Christopher Ellis) and unfailingly good Hero (Carollette Phillips), who manage to broadcast they are meant for each other without confining the characters to their numbingly pure affection.

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Twelfth Night

With its third comedy in as many months, the Blackbird Theatre’s Shakespeare West festival now bends Twelfth Night to its counterculture will. The show’s carefree decadence nestles intriguingly into the perspective of free love and rollicking social change, but palpable rough edges and pitfalls keep the story from reaching far-out heights. The drawbacks are most likely suggestive of time constraints on the part of director Barton Bund and company, a reminder that the young festival’s learning curve remains steep.

Disparity reigns in the play’s several plots, bridged by common characters but not often intersecting; the cast of twelve appears in small groups of limited permutation. Playing hub to these many spokes is Viola (Diviin Huff), washed ashore alone on the island of Illyria and forced to pass as a man out of self preservation. As “Cesario,” Viola enters the service of the duke Orsino (Sean Sabo) and is sent on his behalf to court the countess Olivia (Marisa Dluge); thanks to the gender reversal, the three form a perfect unrequited-love triangle. Huff’s intelligent and able Viola is a likable protagonist; opposite her, Sabo’s best work is not as a lover, but as a uncomprehending, patronizing confidante, and indulgent Dluge’s amazement at her own infatuation is quite fun. Olivia is also sought after by her humorlessly aspirational servant Malvolio (Bund), who becomes the target of a team of perpetually wasted ne’er-do-wells — Dan Johnson, Danny Friedland, and Qmara Peaches Black join forces in revelry to form a riotous peanut gallery. Elsewhere, Viola’s twin brother is less dead than his sister believes (and vice versa); he’s also markedly less identical than the plot requires.

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The Tempest

Water Works Theatre Company isn’t the first of Michigan’s companies to honor The Tempest on its quadricentennial anniversary, but an organization whose hallmark is a single Shakespeare-in-the-park production every year can hardly be blamed for seizing the opportunity. For what it’s worth, the outdoor production in Royal Oak’s Starr Jaycee Park is thus far unique in its creative and high-tech focus on the magical and superhuman elements of William Shakespeare’s final play. As was abundantly evident to this reviewer even at the production’s first preview performance, Water Works Artistic Director Jeff Thomakos helms the current production with a flair for the theatrical, using fantasy and spectacle to perform sorcery in plain sight.

Front and center in this telling are the design and technical elements that highlight the inexplicable capabilities of the desert island under rule of the banished Prospero (Paul Hopper). In particular, Nina Barlow’s exhaustive mask work is executed with purpose, serving as a physical talisman of a creature touched by magic. Notably, Prospero’s servant Caliban (Rusty Mewha) dons a single mask, a source of vile fascination to which the actor layers on incredible simian physicality. In contrast, the changeling spirit Ariel (Sara Catheryn Wolf) wears a half-dozen faces to suit the text, each variably informing a solid performance founded on curious approximations of human interaction and animal-like loyalty. The action also extends into vertical space, in the form of visible rigging that suspends characters several feet above the stage. The effect is best implemented with a hovering trio of spirits (Jaclyn Strez, Samantha White, and Katie Terpstra), a constant and mysterious reminder of the magic influences of the island in addition to one of many gorgeous stage pictures.

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