DAVID HARLAN
Claudio (Luke McGreevy) and Juliet (Lauren Welch), left, are an unmarried couple livingtogether. On the right, the strict deputy Lord Angelo (Anthony Kirby) is approachedby Claudio’s sister Isabel (Emma Blonda), who asks for mercy for Claudio in theUniversity of Idaho’s production of “Measure for Measure,” opening Friday.
Shakespeare’s “Measure for Measure,” with its timeless examination of power imbalances, runs two weekends, starting Friday, April 28, at the University of Idaho’s Hartung Theater in Moscow.
The play, which director Kate Powers set in the early 1970s for this production, explores the boundaries between authority and authoritarianism, righteousness and corruption, justice and mercy, and cancel culture and forgiveness, according to a UI news release. Powers, a UI Master of Fine Arts alumna who teaches in the Department of Theatre Arts distance program, said it provides no easy answers.
“401 years before Tarana Burke coined the phrase ‘Me, too,’ as a way for women to share their stories of sexual assault, Shakespeare captured a violence that many of us still struggle with,” she said in the news release. “Isabel, a novice in a convent, asks, ‘To whom should I complain? Did I tell this, who would believe me?’ And then, sure enough, the disguised government official sets up a situation where Isabel will not be believed, will be portrayed as unhinged, where her powerful attacker is placed in a position to evaluate the veracity of her claims.”
Powers, a teacher and director with Rehabilitation Through the Arts at Sing Sing Correctional Facility in New York, founded The Redeeming Time Project to teach life skills to incarcerated and formerly incarcerated individuals by exploring Shakespeare and theater. A Fulbright scholar focusing on Shakespeare, she earned her Master of Arts at the Shakespeare Institute in Stratford-upon-Avon, England.
IF YOU GO
WHAT: “Measure for Measure”
WHEN: 7:30 p.m. April 28-29 and May 5-6; 2 p.m. April 29 and May 7.
WHERE: Hartung Theater, University of Idaho, 625 Stadium Drive, Moscow.
TICKETS: Free for UI students, $5-$20 for public at uitickets.evenue.net or one hour before showtime at the theater, credit card only.
The play, which director Kate Powers set in the early 1970s for this production, explores the boundaries between authority and authoritarianism, righteousness and corruption, justice and mercy, and cancel culture and forgiveness, according to a UI news release. Powers, a UI Master of Fine Arts alumna who teaches in the Department of Theatre Arts distance program, said it provides no easy answers.
“401 years before Tarana Burke coined the phrase ‘Me, too,’ as a way for women to share their stories of sexual assault, Shakespeare captured a violence that many of us still struggle with,” she said in the news release. “Isabel, a novice in a convent, asks, ‘To whom should I complain? Did I tell this, who would believe me?’ And then, sure enough, the disguised government official sets up a situation where Isabel will not be believed, will be portrayed as unhinged, where her powerful attacker is placed in a position to evaluate the veracity of her claims.”
Powers, a teacher and director with Rehabilitation Through the Arts at Sing Sing Correctional Facility in New York, founded The Redeeming Time Project to teach life skills to incarcerated and formerly incarcerated individuals by exploring Shakespeare and theater. A Fulbright scholar focusing on Shakespeare, she earned her Master of Arts at the Shakespeare Institute in Stratford-upon-Avon, England.
IF YOU GO
WHAT: “Measure for Measure”
WHEN: 7:30 p.m. April 28-29 and May 5-6; 2 p.m. April 29 and May 7.
WHERE: Hartung Theater, University of Idaho, 625 Stadium Drive, Moscow.
TICKETS: Free for UI students, $5-$20 for public at uitickets.evenue.net or one hour before showtime at the theater, credit card only.
