Simply Streep is your premiere source on Meryl Streep's work on film, television and in the theatre - a career that has won her three Academy Awards and
the praise to be one of the world's greatest working actresses. Created in 1999, we have built an extensive collection to discover Miss Streep's work through an
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Measure for Measure
August 11, 1976 - August 29, 1976
· The Delacorte Theatre
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Directed by: John Pasquin
· Literature: William Shakespeare
· Costume Design: Santo Loquasto
· Production Design: Santo Loquasto
· Music: William Penn
Duke Vincentio (Sam Waterston) - weary of ruling over an immoral city - goes away and leaves his beloved Vienna under the control of pious Angelo (John Cazale), who he knows will enforce the laws. Claudio is arrested for impregnating his fiancé Julietta before marriage, and Angelo sentences him to death to set an example. Claudio’s sister Isabella (Meryl Streep) , who is about to take her vows as a nun, pleads with Angelo for leniency, but he is overtaken by lust and agrees to revoke her brother’s sentence only if she will accept to sleep with him.
Cast & Characters
Production stills, screencaptures, on-set pictures and more
Reviews
The Village Voice, August 23, 1976
Meryl Streep, having made the most difficult choice available in interpreting the character, backtracks from it only once – in her deadpan scene with the Duke, which does not seem to grow out of her outbursts at Claudio. For the rest, I think few actresses could present chaste, cold intelligence as fully, and still convey to the audience their natural warmth. She is the real thing, and if there were nothing else in the production, none of Cazale’s creeping or Lenny Baker’s pelvic outrageousness, if there none of Santo Loquasto’s witty, wide-armed sets, with Giotto demons above and modern sterility below, “Measure for Measure” would still be worth seeing for this Isabella.
Meryl Streep, having made the most difficult choice available in interpreting the character, backtracks from it only once – in her deadpan scene with the Duke, which does not seem to grow out of her outbursts at Claudio. For the rest, I think few actresses could present chaste, cold intelligence as fully, and still convey to the audience their natural warmth. She is the real thing, and if there were nothing else in the production, none of Cazale’s creeping or Lenny Baker’s pelvic outrageousness, if there none of Santo Loquasto’s witty, wide-armed sets, with Giotto demons above and modern sterility below, “Measure for Measure” would still be worth seeing for this Isabella.
Time Magazine, August 23, 1976
Meryl Streep slowly overcomes a role she was not meant for – Isabella, the hysterical novice who is asked to sell her virtue to Angelo to save her brother’s life. Lenny Baker is hilarious as Lucio, advocating lechery in the accents of Will Rogers. Director John Pasquin keeps the play moving, even through those last toyings with fate and shotgun marriages whereby the playwright pastes a sickly grin on this mask of tragedy and squa lor. Measure for Measure was Shakespeare’s poison-pen letter to the world. Its view of man, once regarded as intolerably bleak, now seems distressingly up-to-date.
Meryl Streep slowly overcomes a role she was not meant for – Isabella, the hysterical novice who is asked to sell her virtue to Angelo to save her brother’s life. Lenny Baker is hilarious as Lucio, advocating lechery in the accents of Will Rogers. Director John Pasquin keeps the play moving, even through those last toyings with fate and shotgun marriages whereby the playwright pastes a sickly grin on this mask of tragedy and squa lor. Measure for Measure was Shakespeare’s poison-pen letter to the world. Its view of man, once regarded as intolerably bleak, now seems distressingly up-to-date.
 Released August 27, 2024 Meryl Streep returned as Loretta Durkin for the fourth season of Hulu's "Only Murders in the Building", starring Steve Martin, Martin Short, Selena Gomez, and guest-starring Eugene Levy, Eva Longoria & Melissa McCarthy. |
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