Measure for Measure at Chicago Shakespeare Theater

Chicago Tribune - Highly Recommended

"...If you're a fan of Shakespearean staging of the top drawer, you'll not want to miss the way Donnellan affects the many transitions in the play - he does this mostly by moving his entire cast around the stage in clumps. Your eye goes to the dominant horizontal movement, and then you see the smaller, intimate scene suddenly being disgorged by the clump, if you know what I mean. This makes the show move like wildfire and, better yet, you get a sense of the crowd belching out the individual in crisis, opening them up, closing down on them and then going about its generally sleazy and anonymous business. Nyet, indeed."

Chicago Sun Times - Recommended

"...what English director Declan Donnellan has done with his Russian actors is to choreograph an entire prologue for Shakespeare's uncompromising tale of personal, political and religious hypocrisy and moral distortion - one that at certain moments feels threatening, and at others absurdly comic."

ChicagoCritic - Highly Recommended

"...The circumstances through which Angelo’s cruel edicts are resolved are rather unrealistic, and the production makes no attempt to hide that. Instead, they are presented as part of the Duke’s awakening to the proper use of his power, and the return of love (and Pavel Akimkin’s music) to a brutal world. The concept is distinctly Eastern European, and I hope that all the other shows that come through as part of the World Stages series as part of the festival will do such a fine job of putting a native spin on what they find fascinating about Shakespeare."

Chicago Stage and Screen - Highly Recommended

"...All throughout, the production invokes a place not too different from what one imagines Putin's Russia to be: despotic, corrupt and brutal. I kept thinking that, given the country's officially sponsored homophobia, it would be intriguing to imagine a gay Claudio who attracts the deathly wrath of Angelo because of his sexual orientation, not because he has gotten a girl pregnant. But this is hardly a criticism. A couple of scenes here and there feel less taut than the rest and keeping your eyes on both the subtitles and the actors can be maddening, yet this Measure for Measure proves that Shakespeare 400 is off to a great start."

The Fourth Walsh - Recommended

"...There are many captivating moments like this one. Ormerod and Donnellan's moving imagery is artistic storytelling. Oversize red boxes onstage spin around to reveal various acts happening. One box stuns with an occupied electric chair. Another box twirls to show two people f#cking in the brothel. Meanwhile, Arsentyev cradles a drunken prisoner to coerce him to give up his life for another. The action appears tender. The request is not. Kuzichev teasingly removes Khalilulina's stocking. The action seems tender. The request is not. The visuals continually reinforce the corruption of authority and morality, right and wrong, sin and bigger sin."

Third Coast Review - Highly Recommended

"...There’s a lot of repression in Measure for Measure, and Russians know their repression, starting with a bank of old-school interrogation lights above the stage, illuminating the large, aptly red boxes, that, when solid, provide Soviet-style blocks to movement, and, when spun around to reveal openings, house the underpinnings of the play and society then and now, an electric chair and a sex booth."