Measure for Measure

HOUSE + BODY’s production of Measure for Measure currently playing in the Studio Theatre at Crow’s is Shakespeare with a twist.  It’s an adaptation written and directed by Christopher Manousos.  The schtick is that it’s part of a radio series of live Shakespeare and we are watching the goings on in the studio where five actors play all twenty characters with commercials, sponsor messages and the rest of the baggage of radio broadcasts.  There are also some “off stage” shenanigans involving the actors; principally the two women who engage in wistful glances and then have an almost steamy scene in the “interval”.   I’m going to speculate that this is a sort of nod to Isabella’s ambiguous nature in the actual play.

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Postcard from Morocco

Dominick Argento’s 1971 work Postcard from Morocco is unusual.  It’s opera meets Ionesco meets acid rock.  It’s a weird and wonderful kaleidoscope of scenes and music “about” a group of characters who seem to have nothing in common except that they have showed up at a railway station in Morocco c. 1914.  Michael Cavanagh’s production for UoT Opera plays it straight veering to OTT which seems about right.  This piece doesn’t need directorial “interpretation” but it does need careful organisation and lots of energy.  Cavanagh’s approach provided plenty of both.

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