Measure for Measure, Shakespeare & Company

Stables Theatre, Lenox, Mass.
June 21 – August 25, 1996

Critical Response

Davenport is an unusually vigorous and straightforward Duke, putting all his plots into motion with the assured tones of one used to strategy and command. . . . In the present production the audience’s burden of suspending disbelief is a tad heavier than usual, because the Friar and the Duke are two of the only three black people in Venice. The third is Davenport’s marvelously dense Constable Elbow, a comic creation so complete and so different from the actor’s other characterization that if Elbow revealed himself as the Duke in disguise I would not have wondered at the Venetians inability to spot him.”
—G.L. Horton,  AISLE SAY Boston (June 1996)

“The pacing is terrific; it’s like Shakespeare via “ER,” with the momentum never flagging. Nor does the diction falter. . . . [T]he freedom of speech allows the actors to cavort naturally. The only weakness in “Measure” is that the male members of the cast are all much better cavorters than the women. Johnny Lee Davenport, Allyn Burrows, Walton Wilson and Jason Asprey are excellent.”
—Ed Siegel, Boston Globe (June 27, 1996)

Leave a Reply