CHICAGO—It follows Shakespeare’s plot line, but the revival of “Measure for Measure” at Chicago Shakespeare Theater unfolds in a different time and place, and features a lot more color, choreography, and music than Shakespeare could ever have imagined.
This modern take still has the same theme as the play’s original performance in 1604, which focused on personal moral values pitted against a theocratic state and questioned whether human relationships should be regulated by a political agency.
But this reinvented production differs from the 17th century original in interesting ways. Instead of being set in Italy, this reworked drama is set in a flamboyant nightclub in Havana, Cuba. The time has also been changed. It is now 1959, the year in which Castro was about to bring a communist revolution to the beautiful island….