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ricardienneLeave it to the Victorians to produce Measure for Measure without once mentioning sex.
It's… hilarious. The Pompey and Overdone subplot has been completely cut, of course, but so has the Juliet one. Yes, Claudio is now condemned "for an act of rash selfishness which nowadays would only be punished by severe reproof."
The real kicker, however, comes from the Angelo-Isabel interaction. She rather embroiders on the play, I must say:
On entering with Lucio, the beautiful girl said, "I am a woeful suitor to your Honor."
"Well?" said Angelo.
She colored at his chill monosyllable and the ascending red increased the beauty of her face. "I have a brother who is condemned to die," she continued. "Condemn the fault, I pray you, and spare my brother."
"Every fault," said Angelo, "is condemned before it is committed. A fault cannot suffer. Justice would be void if the committer of a fault went free."
Of course, Angelo says "Well, what's your suit," and not simply a "chill monosyllable." It irritates me, it really does, that she feels the need to simplify the dialogue that she's exerpting. Is "I have a brother is condemn'd to die:
I do beseech you, let it be his fault,
And not my brother" really that hard to understand? Is "Why, every fault's condemn'd ere it be done:" so much more difficult than "Every fault is condemned before it is comitted"? No, but it is much more beautiful.
But language aside (though what's the point of Shakespeare if you take out the language?), Nesbitt does rather amazing things to the plot.
Angelo doesn't proposition Isabel; he proposes to her.
But as she turned to go, Angelo felt that his duty and honor were slight in comparison with the loss of her.
"Give me your love," he said, "and Claudio shall be freed."
"Before I would marry you, he should die if he had twenty heads to lay upon the block," said Isabella, for she saw then that he was not the just man he pretended to be.
So she went to her brother in prison, to inform him that he must die. At first he was boastful, and promised to hug the darkness of death. But when he clearly understood that his sister could buy his life by marrying Angelo, he felt his life more valuable than her happiness, and he exclaimed, "Sweet sister, let me live."
"O faithless coward! O dishonest wretch!" she cried.
Who knew? Marriage: the scourge of honor and morality. She certainly isn't making it easy to sympathize with Isabel, here. Are we really expected to think it shocking that Claudio feels "his life more valuable than her happiness"? Apparently so. It's a wonderful "what might have been" moment for us Angelo/Isabel proponents" -- if only he had actually proposed, had taken the honorable route… but no. Here, it is dishonorable to propose to marry a girl. To which I can only say, what the hell?
Here's the new, sanitized version of the bed-trick:
The Duke then told her that Angelo was affianced to Mariana, whose love-story he related. He then asked her to consider this plan. Let Mariana, in the dress of Isabella, go closely veiled to Angelo, and say, in a voice resembling Isabella's, that if Claudio were spared she would marry him. Let her take the ring from Angelo's little finger, that it might be afterwards proved that his visitor was Mariana.
Oooh! The all-powerful ring. It turns out to be a very nice ring, too, "in which was set a milky stone which flashed in the light with secret colors." (What? What? What is this? The One Ring to rule them All?)
Then Nesitt proceeds to rip off Tennyson, which is quite funny:
The Duke looked out of the window and saw the broken sheds and flower-beds black with moss, which betrayed Mariana's indifference to her country dwelling. Some women would have beautified their garden: not she. She was for the town; she neglected the joys of the country. He was sure that Angelo would not make her unhappier.
With blackest moss the flower pots
Were thickly crusted one and all.
The rusted nail hung from the knots
That tied the pear to gable wall.
The broken sheds looked sad and strange,
Unlifted was the clinking latch,
weeded and worn the ancient thatch,
Upon the lonely Moated Grang
Yes? Yes. We also get to absolve the duke of insensitivity in one line, even as Angelo's allegations of levity are upheld: Mariana sounds like the quintessential party-girl to me; not happy in the solitude of the country; only living for town life… definitely not the wife for the austere Lord Angelo.
Really, this version only presents Angelo in a better and better light, if unintentionally. The only thing we can really charge against him is that he allows himself to be swayed by the promise of marriage: that he's not strict enough, in other words.
So Isabel sues to the duke for justice, Mariana reveals herself, and, "I know the woman," said Angelo. "Once there was talk of marriage between us, but I found her frivolous." Excuse me while I fall over laughing.
Everything else more or less turns out as you would expect, except that Nesbitt seems to think that the Provost is a bit of a dimwit, and she one-ups Shakespeare in making Isabel silent. And then we get this concluding gem, concerning Lucio (who is introduced to us as "Claudio's queer friend").
Lucio he condemned to marry a stout woman with a bitter tongue. Oy vey.
In other news: OMG! My dad is rated on ratemyprofessor.com! They seem to like him, though they say his classes are hard. And should I be relieved or disappointed that he has no "hotness" rating?
EDIT: I am even more amused: he is listed twice; once with last name spelled correctly, and once with the infamous ie-ei switch. The one really negative rating comes under the mispelled name.
In still other news,
Severus Snape
You clearly do not scare easily. You want a man
who is sharp, intellectual, cultured, and not
too mushy. Get underneath his cool, sarcastic
exterior and who knows what treasures you might
find.
Who is your Harry Potter love match? (for girls)
brought to you by Quizilla
Oh goody. Always knew that I belonged with a probably amoral type.
It's… hilarious. The Pompey and Overdone subplot has been completely cut, of course, but so has the Juliet one. Yes, Claudio is now condemned "for an act of rash selfishness which nowadays would only be punished by severe reproof."
The real kicker, however, comes from the Angelo-Isabel interaction. She rather embroiders on the play, I must say:
On entering with Lucio, the beautiful girl said, "I am a woeful suitor to your Honor."
"Well?" said Angelo.
She colored at his chill monosyllable and the ascending red increased the beauty of her face. "I have a brother who is condemned to die," she continued. "Condemn the fault, I pray you, and spare my brother."
"Every fault," said Angelo, "is condemned before it is committed. A fault cannot suffer. Justice would be void if the committer of a fault went free."
Of course, Angelo says "Well, what's your suit," and not simply a "chill monosyllable." It irritates me, it really does, that she feels the need to simplify the dialogue that she's exerpting. Is "I have a brother is condemn'd to die:
I do beseech you, let it be his fault,
And not my brother" really that hard to understand? Is "Why, every fault's condemn'd ere it be done:" so much more difficult than "Every fault is condemned before it is comitted"? No, but it is much more beautiful.
But language aside (though what's the point of Shakespeare if you take out the language?), Nesbitt does rather amazing things to the plot.
Angelo doesn't proposition Isabel; he proposes to her.
But as she turned to go, Angelo felt that his duty and honor were slight in comparison with the loss of her.
"Give me your love," he said, "and Claudio shall be freed."
"Before I would marry you, he should die if he had twenty heads to lay upon the block," said Isabella, for she saw then that he was not the just man he pretended to be.
So she went to her brother in prison, to inform him that he must die. At first he was boastful, and promised to hug the darkness of death. But when he clearly understood that his sister could buy his life by marrying Angelo, he felt his life more valuable than her happiness, and he exclaimed, "Sweet sister, let me live."
"O faithless coward! O dishonest wretch!" she cried.
Who knew? Marriage: the scourge of honor and morality. She certainly isn't making it easy to sympathize with Isabel, here. Are we really expected to think it shocking that Claudio feels "his life more valuable than her happiness"? Apparently so. It's a wonderful "what might have been" moment for us Angelo/Isabel proponents" -- if only he had actually proposed, had taken the honorable route… but no. Here, it is dishonorable to propose to marry a girl. To which I can only say, what the hell?
Here's the new, sanitized version of the bed-trick:
The Duke then told her that Angelo was affianced to Mariana, whose love-story he related. He then asked her to consider this plan. Let Mariana, in the dress of Isabella, go closely veiled to Angelo, and say, in a voice resembling Isabella's, that if Claudio were spared she would marry him. Let her take the ring from Angelo's little finger, that it might be afterwards proved that his visitor was Mariana.
Oooh! The all-powerful ring. It turns out to be a very nice ring, too, "in which was set a milky stone which flashed in the light with secret colors." (What? What? What is this? The One Ring to rule them All?)
Then Nesitt proceeds to rip off Tennyson, which is quite funny:
The Duke looked out of the window and saw the broken sheds and flower-beds black with moss, which betrayed Mariana's indifference to her country dwelling. Some women would have beautified their garden: not she. She was for the town; she neglected the joys of the country. He was sure that Angelo would not make her unhappier.
With blackest moss the flower pots
Were thickly crusted one and all.
The rusted nail hung from the knots
That tied the pear to gable wall.
The broken sheds looked sad and strange,
Unlifted was the clinking latch,
weeded and worn the ancient thatch,
Upon the lonely Moated Grang
Yes? Yes. We also get to absolve the duke of insensitivity in one line, even as Angelo's allegations of levity are upheld: Mariana sounds like the quintessential party-girl to me; not happy in the solitude of the country; only living for town life… definitely not the wife for the austere Lord Angelo.
Really, this version only presents Angelo in a better and better light, if unintentionally. The only thing we can really charge against him is that he allows himself to be swayed by the promise of marriage: that he's not strict enough, in other words.
So Isabel sues to the duke for justice, Mariana reveals herself, and, "I know the woman," said Angelo. "Once there was talk of marriage between us, but I found her frivolous." Excuse me while I fall over laughing.
Everything else more or less turns out as you would expect, except that Nesbitt seems to think that the Provost is a bit of a dimwit, and she one-ups Shakespeare in making Isabel silent. And then we get this concluding gem, concerning Lucio (who is introduced to us as "Claudio's queer friend").
Lucio he condemned to marry a stout woman with a bitter tongue. Oy vey.
In other news: OMG! My dad is rated on ratemyprofessor.com! They seem to like him, though they say his classes are hard. And should I be relieved or disappointed that he has no "hotness" rating?
EDIT: I am even more amused: he is listed twice; once with last name spelled correctly, and once with the infamous ie-ei switch. The one really negative rating comes under the mispelled name.
In still other news,
Severus Snape
You clearly do not scare easily. You want a man
who is sharp, intellectual, cultured, and not
too mushy. Get underneath his cool, sarcastic
exterior and who knows what treasures you might
find.
Who is your Harry Potter love match? (for girls)
brought to you by Quizilla
Oh goody. Always knew that I belonged with a probably amoral type.
