Q&A with Taffety Punk director Lise Bruneau on the upcoming 'Measure for Measure'

'Measure for Measure' begins September 16

Lise Bruneau, founding member of Taffety Punk Theatre Company and director of its upcoming, all-female Measure for Measure, took the time to answer some questions about the show, working with an all-female cast, and Shakespeare's intimidating reputation. Here's what she had to say...

EP: I read that Romeo and Juliet was in response to the Shakespeare Theater Company doing an all-male one. What made you decide to respond with an all-female production?

LB: It just happens that most theater companies in the world have this brilliant, mind-blowing idea to do a Shakespeare with all men! They all act like it’s the first time anybody’s had this idea and honestly every single theater company that does classical work will do one of these every seven years or so. And it’s over and over and over and no one ever, ever, ever says “Let’s do an all-female, wouldn’t that be cool?” Now I understand the historical significance of doing it with all men, and if it was always an Elizabethan production that was meant to explore that sort of thing, I would get it. But it never is. So I was getting set to complain and belly-ache and just mouth off about this when my partner, Marcus Kyd, who is the CEO of Taffety Punk Theater Company, said, “Well, why don’t we just do an all-girl one?” And I thought it was hilarious...and thought it was the best idea I had ever heard...he actually engaged us in a sort of rebuttal, like you say. And, you know, it was incredibly good-natured and I saw [director David Muse's] production and he saw mine.

In doing Measure for Measure, did you discover anything new about the all-female approach that was different from when you did it the first time?

I was not very well-acquainted with the play. What most of us know about it is this very scary blackmail that a new official throws at a young nun...unless she gives this official her virginity, the brother is going to be killed. So you hear something like that and you think, “well, this play has got gender politics written all over it,” right? Well, that ended up not being the case. [laughs] It is actually a very woman-friendly play. Isabella, the nun, is an absolute heroine... in Romeo and Juliet we found the gender politics so fun and so fascinating. The boys that hang out with Romeo are just making fun of women and you know, telling dirty jokes through the whole play. They have the wonderful, bawdy approach to girls and that was so wonderful for the women to play...And in this one, we still have that opportunity, but it’s not what we thought.

There’s one particular character who is quite a player. And that’s fun, because while this actress ended up in the same sort of slot, the kind of comedic mouthy character (last time she was the nurse, and this time she is Lucio) but one of them is female and one of them is male, which is wonderful.

You said that you didn’t know Measure for Measure that well…what made you decide to do this particular play this way?

What I did know about it was that it was an exceedingly dangerous play and this whole issue between Angelo and Isabella just seemed like of sexual politics and, to a very large extent, it is. But, funnily enough, they’re very character based as opposed to societal, which makes my job a little bit easier...Somebody pointed out, and I’ve mentioned this to a couple of other people that I’ve spoken to, that there’s a woman with child and the guy who knocked her up is the one who’s going to get executed… In a Shakespeare play? It’s always the girls who get in trouble! There’s a madam who’s a female business owner. She’s not exceedingly well-respected, but she’s doing alright for herself. It’s just the setting of the play is one that has a lot more opportunities for positive opportunities for women than I had expected. But the character of Angelo, the relationship of Angelo and Isabella, still offers all of the danger that I was looking for, so [I was] not disappointed. 

This is a play that doesn’t get performed as often as some other Shakespeare plays. Do you think there’s something in particular that will surprise the audiences about it?

I think the thing that is going to be the most surprising is the character of the Duke. It’s a character that’s not very well-known in Shakespeare. In fact, when I said I was very excited to do this play, it was because of Angelo and Isabella...But behind the scenes is the government official who leaves town in order for Angelo to clean up the mess that he’s made as a very sort of live-and-let live kind of person, very forgiving, very understanding of human foibles... And because he doesn’t feel right going in and going, “Okay, I wasn't enforcing this before, but now I’m going to,” that’s why he appoints Angelo to take care of it...The law says you’re going to get killed for fornicating? [Angelo's] going to kill you... Angelo falls for Isabella when she’s coming to plead for the life of her brother, that’s why he puts himself in this position of asking for her virginity in order to spare her brother..very dicey, very very icky, very scary. He’s obviously a man who doesn’t know himself, obviously a man who is not at peace with his sexuality at all. And again, that’s what drew me to the play, you know, who is this guy? And I then I found out that the Duke is really fascinating as well, so I’m looking forward to introducing that character to a lot of people who might not know him.

You also directed Troilus and Cressida. How was it to switch from all-in-a-day to a more traditional production schedule? (Author's note: Troilus and Cressida was performed as a "bootleg," and was rehearsed and performed in a single day.)

I mean, we do a lot of preparation for the bootleg, but certainly not an entire month of reading the play every couple of days and looking at scenes over and over and over again. And what they do is just reveal themselves. They continue to reveal themselves in more and more detail, which is thrilling. Absolutely thrilling. As per usual, it’s just about you keeping up with the brilliance of the writer.

Shakespeare can be intimidating for a lot of people. Do you have any general advice for actors or companies who decide they want to do Shakespeare, but are approaching it for the first time?

The most useful thing anyone has ever, ever told me about Shakespeare in my whole career was when I was 18 years old, a gentleman named Dakin Matthews (who’s one of the foremost Shakespeare scholars in America) said to me that, “Shakespeare wrote in English.” ...That is what we are most afraid of. We are most frightened that he wrote “poetry” or “metaphor.” We get intimidated by the size of his reputation, but he had a sort of naughty sense of humor, just like anybody else. He had a deep understanding of human beings, obviously...Sometimes you have to look up a word, sometimes you have to spend a moment making sure that you follow his thought specifically, but it’s just what we say. And it’s just a story....We’re really, really lucky to have it. We’re also lucky that everybody does it, because the reason you can make departures from Shakespeare or have a really good time with it is when people are familiar with the stories because they are done so much. It gives you a bit more freedom. 

Saying that, is there a specific Shakespeare play or production you’ve seen in the past that’s been your favorite?

I felt like the Lear that they did at Shakespeare Theater recently was really phenomenal in a lot of ways...When you’ve got people that think it’s okay to cut somebody’s eyes out? You’re dealing with a really, really brutal culture. And it’s never made much sense to me, but, boy, what was going on during [the Balkan wars] and during that genocide and during that whole ridiculous mess over there, setting it there made so much sense. So, because of the setting, and because Stacy Keach was magnificent, that was one of my favorite productions that I’ve seen recently. My all-time-favorite production that I’ve ever seen was also of King Lear. It was a British production ...and Ian McKellen played Kent in that Lear and Brian Cox was the gentleman that played Lear. The reason that I loved that one was because every actor’s choice was so powerful and the story was so clear because the actors were telling their own stories with such clarity. Every time someone said a word, you understood how they felt about everything they were talking about on a very deep level....It was magnificent.

Is there a specific Shakespeare play you would want to do in the future?

I think, actually, there’s only a handful of plays that I’m not very interested in doing. My experience has shown me thus far that whatever I’m expecting to get out of a play, I’m probably going to get something very different than from what I came in thinking. Macbeth is a play that I’m really super, super fond of. And I’ve never been in a production of Hamlet, even though I’ve seen a couple. And I have a sense that that one has one or two or five million surprises in store.

 Measure for Measure opens Friday, September 18 and runs until October 10 at the Capitol Hill Arts Workshop (545 7th St. SE, Washington, D.C.), with pay-what-you-can preview performances on Sept. 16 and 17 at 7:00pm. Performances are Wed-Sat at 7:30pm, with Sat. matinees at 3:00pm. All tickets are $10 at the door.

This interview was conducted on September 13, 2009. Questions and answers have been edited for length.