"'Tis one thing to be tempted, another thing to fall," professes Angelo, the newly appointed regent of the Duke. Shakespeare certainly knew how to pile on the irony, and 400 years on this notoriously difficult and morally tricky play still has the power to send you out of the theatre arguing for and against the characters and their actions.
For a modern audience, Isabella's determination to save her virginity over the life of her brother can make her seem priggish, but even if you take that view the drama is sufficiently slippery to throw up plenty of other moral propositions. Do two wrongs make a right? And what about the behaviour of the Duke? These questions become urgent, necessary and utterly contemporary in good productions of this play, and this is a very fine rendition indeed.
Director Andrew Hilton is a bit of a puritan about Shakespeare. He stages it in period costume and without embellishment. There are no tricks, just clear storytelling, excellent verse speaking and intricate, wonderfully detailed performances. The acting of every single player here, right down to the smallest role, is crystal. Even the tiny part of the Nun is beautifully done.
The production includes a new scene in which we see the coupling of the hypocritical, lustful Angelo and Marina, his rejected fiancee who undertakes to replace the virtuous Isabella in his bed. The scene neither adds nor detracts. But for the most part this is a simple and vigorous production in which the motivations and internal crises of the characters are made so palpable that the effect is like watching a piece of high-class soap opera. Even if you know the play well, it makes you want to tut and say: "Goodness, how some people behave."
In such a good cast, it is almost a shame to pick people out, but John Mackay's Angelo is wonderfully complex and right from the beginning conveys his fallibility. His reluctance to take the Duke's chair suggests that he has enough self-knowledge to be aware of his own weaknesses. That he knows that he will fall.
As Isabella, Lucy Black suggests not a saint, but a quiet woman with a steely resolve who can get quite snappy when stressed. The ending is just wonderful: with her brother unexpectedly restored to her and the Duke rushing her into marriage, Isabella doesn't look suffused with joy but has the glazed, horrified look of a woman who has just realised that a juggernaut is bearing down on her at 100 miles an hour.
Until March 17. Box office: 0117-902 0344.
