Conjuring with morality

You can see why Harold Bloom, in his marvellous book Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human, should have called Measure for Measure one of Shakespeare’s most ‘rancid’ plays. But it’s also one that he greatly admired, though it takes a good production like Roxana Silbert’s new one at Stratford to show you just why.

Bloom’s rancidity resides in the unpleasantness of the characters, and in the way in which even the seemingly virtuous go about their morality. Wisely eschewing any overly specific setting, Silbert lets the costumes do the work. It isn’t just the thriving sex industry in ‘Vienna’ that enjoys restrictive clothing, but the Duke and Angelo, both affecting leather corsets worn over roll-neck sweaters reminiscent of 1930s fascist uniform. Repression rules, OK, and this also means an Isabella primly dressed from first to last as a probationer at the nunnery.