Elevator Repair Service, the Obie-winning company behind Gatz — “the most remarkable achievement in theater of this decade” (The New York Times) — returns to The Public to celebrate their 25th season with a dynamic new production of Shakespeare’s MEASURE FOR MEASURE.
When the Duke of Vienna disguises himself as a friar among his people, he finds the city unraveling in an ethical free fall. Before he reclaims his dukedom, can he help the chaste Isabella save her brother from the condemnation of the villain Angelo?
With athletic theatricality and Marx-Brothers-inspired slapstick, the Elevator Repair Service ensemble brings exciting new life to this story of impossible moral choices in 17th-century Vienna. Radical experiments with speed set the play’s combination of the comically absurd and the tragically serious in stark relief, and deliver a remarkable new show that marries the company’s unique performance style with the Bard’s exquisitely lyrical language.
