The play deals with themes and ideas as relevant today as they were when it was written more than 400 years ago.
DALLAS — Shakespeare Dallas is putting on its first winter production in five years this month, and it’s one of the Bard’s tragicomedies, “Measure for Measure.”
The last time the troupe performed in January was in 2020 when they performed “Pride and Prejudice.” A couple of months later when the COVID-19 pandemic happened, it shut down winter productions until now.
“We’ve received an invitation from Theatre Three in Upton to relocate the winter season to their venue,” Measure for Measure Director Jenni Stewart said. “It really kind of felt like the perfect opportunity for us.”
The original idea behind these winter performances was to present titles the troupe doesn’t normally get to perform outdoors at Samuell-Grand Amphitheatre, where they perform in the summer and fall.
“Shakespeare wrote 38 plays, not all of them were written for the Globe [Theatre],” Stewart said. “With the Theatre Three house being 200 seats in the round, we thought it was a perfect fit to do titles we’ve never performed.”
Theatre Tree features an in-the-round stage, meaning spectators sit on all sides of the performance for a closer-than-usual look than one would get at a traditional theater.
Stewart said Shakespeare Dallas has presented “Measure for Measure” in a staged reading format before, but this will be its first fully-produced version.
“I think it’s a completely different experience than our patrons coming out to the park will get,” she said. “Being in the round is a whole different format of storytelling, so I think it’s a nice, intimate, engaging way to present works that audiences can really experience up close and personal.”
“Measure for Measure,” considered one of Shakespeare’s “problem plays,” focuses on a despotic deputy in Vienna who sentences a young man to death for the crime of fornication — only to offer to the man’s nun sister a pardon if she will offer up her virginity to him.
The play deals with themes and ideas as relevant today as they were when it was written more than 400 years ago, such as the clash between public virtue and private vice and systemic inequalities between classes.
“It feels really ripe for the kind of social-political climate that we’re in right now,” Stewart said. “This man who is newly put into absolute power uses that to unfairly apply the law over this novice nun whom he encounters. All of that just felt very relevant to things that we’ve been exploring as a contemporary society.”
The play runs from Jan. 8 through Jan. 26 at the Norma Young Arena Stage at Theatre Tree. Tickets range between $15 and $38. For tickets and more information, click here.