TWO PLAYS SCHEDULED FOR TWO COASTS

“Measure for Measure” and “Undiscovered Country” can be seen on the East Coast this summer, as well as at the Mark Taper Forum. Not in repertory, though. The New York Shakespeare Festival is doing “Measure” in Central Park, while the Williamstown, Mass., Theater Festival is offering “Undiscovered Country.” The first, directed by Joseph Papp himself, doesn’t sound much like Robert Egan’s staging at the Taper, which stressed the morbid side of Shakespeare’s comedy. In Central Park, the emphasis is apparently on the play’s fun and romance.

“Papp doesn’t seem to want anything as dark as threat, or even sexiness,” wrote Alisa Solomon in the Village Voice, faulting him for failing to acknowledge the “artificial blatancy” of the play’s happy ending.

The Associated Press’ Michael Kuchwara thought Papp had captured the smiles of the play but not its somberness. “The result is a curiously tepid affair that isn’t helped by an uneven cast unsure of which way to go with the play. Both John Getz as the Duke and Richard Jordan as Angelo miss the dimensions that would turn their characters into credible human beings.”

Papp’s “Measure for Measure” is set in Vienna before World War I, which is roughly the reference at the Taper. “Undiscovered Country” is a product of that very era, and Williamstown’s production, staged by Nikos Psacharoupolos, appears to be in the vein of Ken Ruta’s staging here.

“An astonishing work,” wrote another Village Voice critic, Gordon Rogoff. He found Tom Stoppard’s English adaptation a bit too clever-clever, but Arthur Schnitzler’s play reminded the critic of a Mahler symphony: “densely packed with sinewy passages of longing and chaos that burst almost discreetly into occasional screams. . . . “

As for the cast, Rogoff found the women more complex and interesting than the men, especially Blythe Danner as the hero’s betrayed wife. “Playing with a strand of hair as she retreats from her own seriousness, she is Mahler’s earth song, suspended in time, heartbreakingly real.”

We’ll still take Christina Pickles.

A few seasons back the Taper saw an adaptation of Kafka’s “Metamorphosis” by Steven Berkoff. Washington’s Woolly Mammoth Theater is performing another version of the tale, by playwright Ralph Hunt. In this one, Kafka’s hero becomes a Vietnam veteran. “The war changed him,” his sister says--and, sure enough, he wakes up a giant cockroach.

“In no time at all his family’s affection changes to repulsion,” wrote critic Hap Erstein in the Washington Times. “ We’re going to stand by you metamorphoses into We have to get rid of him, er, it. “

Erstein was reminded of David Rabe’s vet-back-home drama, “Sticks and Bones,” but not to the point of feeling that this a twice-told tale. “Once again the Woollies have given us plenty to chew on, think about and worry about.”

Boston--Ipswich rather--is seeing a new musical set in the American Revolution. “Liberty’s Taken” combines the true story of a young woman masquerading as a soldier with the imagined adventures of a young rake of the Tom Jones school.

John Engstrom of the Boston Globe found the plot intriguing but convoluted, the characters larger than life but appetizing and the music unmentionable--at least he didn’t mention it. He did like the puppetry and masks of co-director Julie Taymor. “These, however, are the theatrical equivalents of hors d’oeuvre. After 3 1/2 hours, you wonder what happened to the entree.”

QUOTE OF THE WEEK--Hilary Spurling, in “The Genius of Shaw”: “Indiscriminating playgoing sours the temper, blurs the sensitivity, coarsens the palate and destroys the sense of humor.”