 |  |  |  |  |
Opined March 13, 2006
Measure for Pleasure - By David Grimm; directed by Peter DuBois
WITH: Michael Stuhlbarg (Will Blunt), Wayne Knight (Sir Peter Lustforth), Saxon Palmer (Capt. Dick Dashwood), Euan Morton (Molly Tawdry),
Suzanne Bertish (Lady Vanity Lustforth), Susan Blommaert (Dame Stickle), Emily Swallow (Hermione Goode) and Frederick Hamilton and Ryan
Tresser (Footmen).
Sets by Alexander Dodge; Costumes by Anita Yavich; Lighting by Christopher Akerlind( Rabbit Hole);
The Public Theater, Oskar Eustis, artistic director; Mara Manus, executive director. At 425 Lafayette Street, East Village; (212) 239-6200. Through
March 26. Running time: 2 hours 30 minutes.
If I had two thumbs I’d put them both up for this one. Come to think of it – I do, so I will.
It’s hard enough to write a play, but to write one in verse and fill it with spiraling plot lines and overlapping love stories – and never lose the audience. Well,
Bravo. This play is a salute to Restoration Comedy with its jokes and double entendres about sex, desire, disguise and true love. Characters come and go,
speak to us in asides, preen and faun and falter. We follow the story without any particular attachment to the characters and wonder the eternal question of
why is it OK to cast homely overweight, or slightly dull and spit challenged men as romantic leads and insist that the leading women be practically dainty in
their appearance? When will the casting directors look up from the television long enough to notice that woman of size, substance and age are everywhere.
Except on the stage, television and that really big screen.
So anyway... this story zips along in verse and prose quite nicely but without any undue exertion on our part - until Euan Morton shows up in a dress as Molly
Tawdry and steals the heart of Michael Stuhlberg’s Wil Blunt. He steals our hearts as well, and it is this relationship that is worth an evening in the theatre.
While the play is ostensibly about Sir Peter Lustsforth’s roving member and the nearly failed love match of Hermione Good and Dick (Oh, Dick. Dear Dick.)
Dashwood, it is this true affair of the heart that snares us in it’s net.
Morton and Stuhlberg present themselves to us with open hearts and agile spirits. Stuhlberg is our guide as well as playing double duty as the wildly costumed
fop. He is given the gift of many a clever monologue, but it is the monologue that opens the second act that seals the deal. The story of a midget who fell in
love with an enormous woman down the road with mixed results. Morton is captivating in every way and balances his characters many facets like so many
spinning plates. The whole and the parts are visible every moment. He wears them with his heart – on his sleeve.
The show is closing this weekend. It’s worth a trip to the Public.
©2006 Tulis McCall