[In the following review of the 1998 Oregon Shakespeare Festival production of Measure for Measure directed by Libby Appel, Taylor comments on the performance's resistance to the boundaries of character and setting, as well as its highly eroticized atmosphere.]

Artistic Director, Libby Appel, created a series of boundary dissolutions in this production, an appropriate post-modern era approach to a play driven by stark and extreme contrasts. Her production of Uncle Vanya similarly highlighted the interdependence of presence and representation, spectator and spectacle inherent in the theatrical medium.

When I walked into the performance space, I saw larger-than-life erotica plastering the walls under the title “Sex Museum.” Scenic designer William Bloodgood's figures, inspired by the early 20th-century Viennese artist Egon Schiele, provoked a sense of the grotesque, of a potentially cruel and lonely sexuality. In the center of the playing space a square platform framed by iron works suggested the French Quarter. The floor was covered with tabloid newspapers, advertisements for phone sex, and fliers announcing Angelo's edict to shut down the bawdy houses. But on a support pillar near the back of the space was a painting of a crucifix. The juxtaposition of Christ's nearly naked body with the pornographic figures was startling. The apparent dichotomy between Christ's spiritual suffering and an atmosphere of sexual pleasure was further compromised by the bawdy characters' sadomasochistic sexuality throughout the production, and Isabella's submissive prostration before the crucifix. The set itself constructed and deconstructed apparently stable boundaries.

She borrowed the fundamental concept from Tina Packer, who directed Measure for Measure for her own Shakespeare and Company and for Lisa Wolpe's Los Angeles Women's Shakespeare Company. Appel cast the play with seven actors, each playing both a higher and lower character. Vilma Silva, for instance, played both Isabella and Mistress Overdone. The tension between good and evil resonated most dramatically in Angelo (Richard Howard). Just before his second interview with Isabella, he entered flagellating his bare back with a whip, frustrated and desperate both to contain and express his desire. By the end of that scene, he had torn off Isabella's head covering, pinned her to the ground, and covered her mouth with his hand to stop her screams when she saw him reach to unzip his pants. Then suddenly, he pulled his hand away, as if stunned by his own violence. Deeply shaken, Isabella covered her head again for her final monologue. But her voice had a confused and questioning note when she asserted that she must protect her chastity at the expense of her brother's life. The audience was also encouraged to question her decision; as she got to her feet, the tattooed body stocking of Mistress Overdone flashed us from beneath Isabella's black robe. During Angelo's monologue following the scene, Isabella stood in the upstage left corner, first immobile as a statue, her hands clasped over her stomach as if sickened by what she was hearing. Brian Nason lit her from either side by a pink and a white light. As Angelo's desire ignited, she pulled off her head covering and touched her hair seductively, the image of his fantasy.

The confusion of boundaries between the multiple characters each actor played extended to a confusion among character and actor and audience. The play began with all the actors sitting on a series of stepped platforms upstage left and the Duke (Derrick Lee) introducing the play as a storyteller. On this structure or along the edges of the playing space, actors/characters often watched the scenes taking place throughout the production. At some points, they responded in character. When Isabella told the Duke of Angelo's outrageous behavior, Howard rose from his seat on the platform and exited backstage, embarrassed, even though Angelo did not actually hear this conversation, because he was surprised by the revelation in the fifth act. At other points, an actor watching the play displayed a physicality clearly at odds with his or her character's but at one with the actor's own body.

The actors thus literally became a part of the audience while still performing insofar as we were watching them, aware of their off stage choices. The Duke always lurked in the shadows if not onstage, vacillating between his roles as audience and playwright/storyteller. Although he was portrayed as benevolent and uncomfortable with evil, his voyeuristic tendencies surfaced in the scene when he came upon Mariana (Suzanne Irving). She had been lightly masturbating while singing, and he had watched her for some time before she turned to discover him. The actors also frequently addressed the audience, transforming the audience members into actors of sorts. Pompey and Mistress Overdone's gazes were seductive, and Pompey even kissed the head of one female patron, offered his hips to be slapped by another, and sat on the lap of a third.

The final scene juxtaposed a harmonious resolution with a disjunctive tableau resisting closure. In contrast to the opening scene when the characters danced lustfully with one another, here they danced lovingly, as if they had finally united their spiritual and sexual impulses. The pairs exited the stage. The Duke, left alone centerstage, extended his arms toward Isabella, who watched him from the border of aisle and playing space completely motionless and impassive. Her face and figure remained literally as unreadable as her silence in the text.