Description

This photograph shows the climactic scene of Measure for Measure in a production directed by Dominic Dromgoole at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, London, in 2015.

The scene, set in a public place near the city gates of Vienna, stages an encounter between the returning Duke, flanked by his male attendants, and the pious Isabella, supported by Friar Peter. The positioning of the characters, on opposite sides of the stage, might represent the gap between patriarchal, civic power and a woman pleading for ‘Justice’ (5.1.20; 25). Isabella complains to the Duke about the wrongs she has suffered, denouncing Angelo as a ‘murtherer’, ‘an adulterous thief, / An hypocrite, a virgin violator’ (5.1.39–41).

Which actors are shown in the photo?

Left: James Lailey (Friar Peter) and Mariah Gale (Isabella)

Right: (left-right): Dominic Rowan (Duke Vincentio), Kurt Egyiawan (Angelo) and Paul Rider (Escalus).