Word: duking
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...somewhat abridged), Paul Craig correctly avoids turning his Archbishop into a comic Polonius (one mistake in the Olivier film), but is too bland later doubling as Captain Gower. Pirie Macdonald '54 ably doubles as the conspiring Scroop and the Scottish officer Jamy. And Robert Stattel is a commendably solid Duke of Exeter...
Just as Carpenter fails to take advantage of the city, he also forfeits the prodigious potential of his characters, particularly that of Isaac Hayes, who plays the Duke of New York. His ebony dome intact from the days of Shaft and his other forays into the Blaxploitation genre, Hayes could be a marvelously evocative figure--instead, he comes off as a dummy with about three lines and a shiny forehead and automobile. Hayes can't really complain; the whole script can't run more than about ten pages...
...refusal to yield to Angelo's desires condemns her brother to death and even in the context of 17th-century Christianity, it comes off as little more than brutality, and Angelo's subsequent breach of his promise, as he orders Claudio's execution, is utterly despicable. Even when the Duke returns in disguise of a friar, and devises an elaborate plan to save Isabelle's honor, spare Claudio's head, and unmask the culprits--his plan is so strangely convoluted--a series of lesser sins to offset greater crimes--that it is barely within the letter, and certainly nowhere near...
CHRISTIAN CLEMENSON plays this Duke with an extraordinary degree of control, and it is here that the production maintains its delicate balancing act. The Duke, a big bear of a man whose own, somewhat cheap, sense of theatrics keeps the play from dissolving completely into schizophrenia, is played with just the right measure of perverse magnanimity. Clemenson has a commanding presence, and plays the part with a nice sense of discord--the Duke seems to have convinced himself that he is only delaying justice; he wanders around with great relish, half-distracted and yet half-taken with his own powers...
...presented the show as a series of miniatures complete in themselves, maintaining a flow while allowing each scene with its own vacillating emotions. The elaborate denouement, always the bane of this play, and most often done as some sort of grand processional, is handled masterfully, Stein allowing the Duke's flair to carry the audience along. It is strangely exhilarating, yet maintains a gnawing sense of blackness and futility. The note is sounded, but the emphasis left to the audience...