NOTE: The articles in these study guides are not meant to mirror or interpret any particular productions at the Utah Shakespeare Festival. They are meant, instead, to be an educational jumping-off point to understanding and enjoying the play (in any production at any theatre) a bit more thoroughly. Therefore the stories of the plays and the interpretative articles (and even characters at times) may differ from what is ultimately produced on stage.
Also, some of these articles (especially the synopses) reveal the ending and other “surprises” in some plays. If you don’t want to know this information before seeing the plays, you may want to reconsider studying this information.
By Jess Boles Lohmann
Desperate Measures has a lot to offer in terms of laughs: funny accents, a drunken priest, bawdry. It’s clearly a fun night at the theatre, and it’s important that we don’t wreck the fun by going esoteric in discussing it. In this piece, I will attempt to follow the example indicated by director Brad Carroll in his notes about the play: “I’ll read the Arden, but then I think I’ll leave it at home!” I’ve read the Arden, and I have a few thoughts, mainly about how we can judge Desperate Measures as a piece of art, understanding, of course, that the play is meant first and foremost to entertain.
How can we assess the play? The fact that it is an adaptation of Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure is inseparable from its value as a work. It’s one of the very first things the characters tell the audience. Because it is an adaptation, there are guidelines by which we should appraise the play other than whether or not it’s “true” to the original or whether or not we enjoy it. It’s impossible to determine whether one is better than the other in an objective way. But we can examine the changes to the story themselves. Our guiding questions are as follows:
1. What was attempted/changed in the act of adaptation?
2. How successful were the attempts/changes?
3. Were the attempts/changes worth doing?
At the start of the show, saloon girl Bella announces that this is an adaptation of Measure for Measure, a problem play, and that they’ve “thrown out half the plot” and cleared up the language but kept all the bits with “(whispers) sex” (Peter Kellogg and David Friedman, Desperate Measures [Steele Spring Stage Rights], 1). With her opening remarks, Bella brings us into the world of adaptation theory and posits that the biggest change to the story is in making it understandable to our modern audience, but she leaves out a most critical change: not the change in vocabulary, but the change in showing a romance developing between Susanna and the Sheriff, replacing Isabella’s silent victimhood at the end of *Measure for Measure.*The addition of a proper love story is what intrigues me most about Desperate Measures, and I think it’s one of the play’s most evocative departures from Shakespeare’s original. Famously, at the end of Measure for Measure, the novice nun Isabella is claimed as wife by the most powerful person in the play, the Duke. After at last pardoning her brother, he says to Isabella: “Give me your hand and say you will be mine” (5.1.564). This pseudo-proposal comes, it seems, out of virtually nowhere. While the Duke has been kind to Isabella, they have no real relationship in the text. In this era of #metoo, I think I can safely encourage you to view his line as it is, as a command. It is a declaration. It is not a matter of choice for Isabella, who is silent and remains silent for the rest of the play. It’s frankly disturbing that she has no choice in the matter; it’s part of what makes this a problem play, especially in our era, which is keener to address women’s voices and freedoms. In Desperate Measures, Isabella becomes Susanna, and the Duke becomes the Sheriff. The play still ends with marriage for the Isabella/Susanna character, but the journey there is entirely different. Rather than being seized for marriage by a powerful man, with literally no say, Susanna gives enthusiastic consent—an important word for this play and our culture—to be the Sheriff’s wife. What’s more, she exercises agency throughout the entire play, and when the moment comes for a wedding, she is the one who seizes the Sheriff for a passionate kiss in response to his question (not command) about whether or not they should marry.
We see the building blocks of Susanna and the Sheriff’s relationship early on, as it’s established from her first entrance that Susanna is not like other Isabellas we may have seen; she comes in with a loaded shotgun, and when the Sheriff challenges her, she trades barbs with him. One way she correlates with Isabella is in her high-minded opinions, and the Sheriff from the outset encourages her to embrace her messy, human side, saying “How ‘bout you climb/ Off that high horse you’re on all the time/ Get down with us mortals in the mud” (17). Susanna learning to be in touch with her feelings and to trust other people is a continuing motif, and it’s part of her decision at the end of the play not to go forward with her vows to become a nun. Even more importantly, Bella hints early on that she sees the chemistry between Susanna and the Sheriff when they’re together, encouraging Susanna to “think about the Sheriff” to bring a smile and some ease to her face (42). Directly after, we see the early playing and flirtation between the novice and Sheriff as Susanna smears whipped cream on the Sheriff’s face (42). The next stage direction is that Bella “bumps Susanna with her hip sending her into the Sheriff’s arms. Susanna and the Sheriff look at each other a moment in surprise, then separate hastily” (43). This is more evidence of their chemistry; they’re bashful around each other but not unhappy to be in each other’s arms. I mean, it’s practically a rom-com.
Soon after, the Sheriff confesses his blossoming feelings for Susanna to the audience in song. It’s important that we see the Sheriff fall for Susanna as well as her for him, but it’s more important that we see his gentleness, softness, and feeling. It makes him a desirable and worthy partner for Susanna instead of a domineering one, like the Duke in Measure for Measure. As the two wait for the bed trick to be over, the Sheriff confesses that in the dark, Susanna “seem[s] almost . . . well, human,” his desire for her to meet him on his level fulfilled (53). Then, a near kiss. In the next number and in a private share with the audience, Susanna sings about “Romance” and “Passion.” She is letting the audience in on her mutual feelings for the Sheriff for the first time. Even more important, she and the Sheriff share the sung word “Passion,” and a shared line of song is an important clue in musical theatre of an affinity between characters. When Susanna sings next, she considers the Sheriff’s “kindness” and “thoughtful[ness]” and plays out her inner turmoil about her future (75). She’s tempted by him. She thinks the right thing to do is stick inflexibly to her plan to surrender herself to the convent, but her heart has warmed to him. She’s impressed by his kindness—maybe she thought there were no kind men. She alluded earlier to the fact that men like the Governor were “why [she] turned [her] back upon the world” (21). At the end of the song, however, she lands on the side of her heart rather than her head—that “It’s love” between her and the Sheriff (77).It’s a moment of revelation happening in real time right in front of us.
At the climax of the play, and at Bella’s suggestion, Susanna broaches the topic of marriage with the Sheriff, saying “Bella has this silly thought/ That you and I would want to . . . tie the knot” (103). The Sheriff asks, “Can you give me one reason we should wed?” Then, Susanna gathers the Sheriff in a passionate kiss. Susanna is the one who makes the act of proposal. She has agency. She knows that words fail in this situation, but she is not silent because she has been given no choice in the matter. She turns from their combative words to an act of love that cannot be mistaken. But they’re not done talking altogether; they have moved from the realm of spoken word to song for the closing number. The emotion has elevated the conversation to music—their hearts can’t express themselves fully in ordinary language. Their wedding is a matter of celebration for all onstage and for us, in the audience. This is such a departure from the bleak end of *Measure for Measure.*Returning to the guiding questions I outlined, here’s how I see Desperate Measures. What was attempted in the adaptation was a more appropriate, liberated, happy story arc for the Isabella/Susanna character. I find the attempt to give Isabella/Susanna more agency and a joyful marriage to her beloved successful, as I find myself convinced and charmed by the way the play illustrates their romance. Lastly, I find that this attempted change is worth doing, as it dignifies Isabella/Susanna and gives her the respect she deserves. It propels the story forward, perhaps not all the way into our own time, but at least into a time when women are given the consideration and choices suited for a protagonist. I think the adaptation has value for this reason. I hope that you will similarly enjoy the play and laugh without your laughter being compromised by a dubious future for a silent Isabella/Susanna. Problem solved.
