STAGE REVIEW : ‘Measure for Measure’ Comes Up Short in Marowitz’s Variations

Like a composer creating “variations,” playwright-director Charles Marowitz chooses a minor theme from Shakespeare’s 1604 tragicomedy, “Measure for Measure,” restating it with his own riffs and reasonings. Shakespeare did the same when he borrowed the plot lines from a George Whitestone play and his “Heptameron,” and a story from Cinzio’s “Ecatommiti.”

In the California Repertory Company program for his “Variations on Measure for Measure,” Marowitz writes that he’s “operating very much in the tradition,” that “despite certain resemblances” his variations are “something else.”

Marowitz also lists in his notes the indignities worked on Shakespearean heroines, including Isabella in “Measure.” In an obvious effort to show that Shakespeare was shortsighted in not writing his Elizabethan plays for the current feminist era, Marowitz singles out Isabella’s trials and tribulations for his variations.

In the process of shaving away the rich color and involved plotting of the original, Marowitz ignores Shakespeare’s main theme of governmental corruption.

The result plays very much like Renaissance Fanny Hurst.

As director, Marowitz is rewarded in his casting of Jane Windsor as the put upon Isabella, torn from a convent to aid her doomed brother Claudio. Windsor gives solidity to the adapter’s slight drama. The director is also favored with good, near-classical performances by Ken Rugg as the aged Escalus; Ron Allan-Lindblom as the Duke who, in the original goes into disguise to watch the workings of his government, but here just disappears until the end of the play; and John Ross Clark as the villainous Angelo, left to run things his own evil way.

The rest of the cast doesn’t do much to help Shakespeare or Marowitz, and his turgid direction gives them nothing in the way of assistance.

Marowitz’s point is best made as Isabella stands center stage at the final fade-out as all the males who have used her to sleazy advantage (including the ghost of her unfortunate brother) clomp menacingly toward her. His point is blurred by sloppy dramaturgy (a long speech mentions the comic lowlife Barnardino for no reason--he’s not in this version).

Marowitz’s “adaptations” are sometimes interesting, even when they don’t work. One that worked beautifully was his rewrite of Ibsen’s “An Enemy of the People” at Los Angeles Actors Theatre a few years ago. His shattered “Hamlet” at the same theater suffered many of the flaws of this “Measure.” Shakespeare is within public domain, but apparently not within Marowitz’s.

At Cal State Long Beach; tonight at 8; also March 1, 2, 10, 15, 24, 29, April 5-7, 19, 21, 27, 28, May 3, 4, 11, 8 p.m.; matinees, March 28, April 4, 18, 2 p.m.; ends May 11. Tickets: $8-$12; (213) 985-2256.