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Measure for Measure

Royal Shakespeare Company

Nun in all white sits in front of a man with a hand on her shoulder

RSC Artistic Director Gregory Doran directs this new production of Measure for Measure, a play written by Shakespeare in the early 1600s but whose story and themes feel even more urgent today.

When a novice nun is compromised by a corrupt official who offers to save her brother from execution in return for sex, she has no idea where to turn for help. When she threatens to expose him, he tells her that no one would believe her.

Following his spellbinding production of The Tempest in 2017, RSC Artistic Director Gregory Doran transports Shakespeare’s dark comedy to 1900s Vienna. In a conflicted society of promiscuity and puritanical law, this new production unveils a shadowy world of repression and dubious morals, which feels astonishingly urgent today.

Tagged with: Theatre & dance RSC 2019

Running time: 2 hrs 45 mins including an interval. 

Sat 14 Dec, 1.15pm
Audio-described and captioned performance with Touch Tour (11.15am)

Tue 14 Jan, 7.15pm
BSL-integrated performance

Tue 14 Jan
BSL-interpreted post-show talk
Free to same-day ticket holders
 

Presented by the Barbican. The Royal Shakespeare Company is supported using public funding by Arts Council England. The RSC Acting Companies are generously supported by The Gatsby Charitable Foundation and The Kovner Foundation.

Reviews

‘Gregory Doran’s assured production offers a perfectly judged portrait of public hypocrisy and seething sexuality‘
‘Lucy Phelps is tremendous... A star in the making; every moment has a static charge‘

Barbican Theatre