Measure for Measure(s): Performance-testing the Adaptation Hypothesis

Abstract

In early 2013 Hoosier Bard staged the first double-bill production of two versions of Measure for Measure, based on John Jowett's “genetic text” of the play in the Oxford Middleton. One version was the familiar Folio text, set in Vienna, allegedly an adaptation by Middleton in 1621. The other version was a conjectural reconstruction of the play written entirely by Shakespeare and performed by the King's Men in 1604; this version removed material attributed to Middleton, and set the play in Ferrara, Italy. The cast and crew worked on the play for eight weeks. This experiment demonstrated that some small changes identified by Jowett (“O death's a great disguiser” and the transposed third and fourth scenes) made no discernible difference. However, overall, actors and audiences found the two versions powerfully different. We consider various scholarly objections made to the adaptation hypothesis since 1994, and test them against performance and rehearsal experience and audience responses. Our illustrated analysis focuses on the trajectory of characters, with particular attention to Julietta, Mariana, Overdone, Isabella, Lucio, Escalus and the Duke. Although the Middleton adaptations constitute only 5% of the text, they affect the beginning of 50% of the play's characters. Typically of Middleton, they particularly expand and complicate female roles, and make expressive use of silent action. We provide new evidence that the play was adapted specifically for Blackfriars, and suggest that the presence of a concluding jig (in 1604, but not 1621) affects interpretation of the ending. We relate the pattern of adaptation to the physical properties of actors' parts, and the fact that all but one of the original cast was no longer performing in 1621. We also argue that interpretation of the original play and the adaptation were powerfully affected by audience assumptions about the opposed geographical sites (Ferrara and Vienna) and by major shifts in attitudes (between 1604 and 1621) toward King James, war, Catholicism, the economy, and freedom of speech. We conclude that both texts work in performance, but work differently, in ways related to the different dramaturgies of Shakespeare and Middleton.