Folger’s ‘Measure for Measure’ is Shakespeare, 50s Southern Style

Power. Desire. Hypocrisy. Mercy. Measure for Measure has them all, and at Folger Theatre, Shakespeare’s rarely staged tragicomedy gets a provocative new life in the 1950s American South.

Directed by Psalmayene 24, the production takes one of Shakespeare’s more complicated plays and leans into what makes it so endlessly interesting: nobody is entirely innocent, nobody holds power for long, and morality can look very different depending on who is making the rules.

Full disclosure: Measure for Measure is one of this reviewer’s favorite Shakespeare plays. It’s rarely staged, perhaps because it refuses to fit neatly into the comedy-or-tragedy box. Instead, it offers something more intriguing… a sometimes uncomfortable look at human nature, and what people will do when power, sex, fear and faith collide.

At the heart of this production is Renea S. Brown’s Isabella, and she is formidable. As the principled novice nun whose brother Claudio (JaBen Early) is sentenced to death for violating the city’s sexual laws, Brown gives Isabella both steel and vulnerability. Her character’s moral certainty is tested in increasingly complicated ways, and Brown makes that internal struggle palpable without overplaying it.

Nathan Darrow brings authority and ambiguity to the Duke, who steps away from governing only to watch what happens when his deputy Angelo (Lee Osorio) gets a taste of unchecked power. Osorio makes Angelo appropriately unsettling; not a cartoon villain, but a man whose righteousness proves considerably less durable than advertised.

The 1950s Southern setting adds another layer to Shakespeare’s already thorny questions. Who makes the rules? Who gets punished for breaking them? And what does mercy actually mean when the people dispensing it hold all the power?

There’s plenty of atmosphere here, too, with choreography by Tony Thomas, an original score by KOKAYI, and a design team that gives the production a strong sense of place without overwhelming the text.

Measure for Measure may not be the Shakespeare play everyone quotes at cocktail parties. That’s part of its appeal. It is stranger, darker, and more psychologically revealing than its relative obscurity might suggest. And in Brown’s commanding Isabella, Folger has found a compelling center for all that moral messiness.

Measure for Measure runs through November 1 at Folger Theatre at the Folger Shakespeare Library on Capitol Hill. Tickets start at $20.