Measure for Measure 1984 Royal Shakespeare Company

Measure for Measure: Directed by Adrian Noble; Designed by Bob Crowley; Photographer, Donald Cooper (ahds.ac.uk./performingarts); Royal Shakespeare Company, April 1984.

"Bob Crowley's design provides an apt metaphor for a work in which New Testament mercy outweighs Old Testament severity and in which the negligent Duke comes face to face with the corruption he has inadvertently santioned. Two bisecting white carpets form a crucifix-pattern on the stage-floor. A huge gilt mirror dominates the stage reminding us that this is a play in which surface appearance is stripped away to expose the reality beneath. And Mr Crowley has also come up with a tottering, baroque campanile that, though it seems more Venetian than Viennese, is encrusted with candles, crosses, legal scales and that manages to suggest a world that has gone awry." Michael Billington, Guardian 18.4.84. Opening Date: 17 April 1984, Theatre: Barbican

Baroque flamboyance becomes a stage metaphor for the moral decadence Angelo abhors. HMR