Attention All Theater Buffs!
… ever heard of York Theater Company?
I’m taking a Shakespeare course at Columbia Teachers College. We’re in the middle of reading Measure for Measure when our dusty old professor cuts his (desultory) flow with an announcement: “You should all see a fantastic off-Broadway musical called Desperate Measures, based on this play.” I love musicals. If all of Shakespeare’s plays were musicals I’d be teaching this damn course.
I send out a text:
“Hey guys there’s this musical I want to see called Desperate Measures at York Theater Company on 54th and Lex, it’s based on a Shakespeare play, who wants to join? Tix are about 30 bucks…”
I miraculously gather a group of 6 — damn, less people came to my birthday this year — and after some mind-blowing dim sum at Dim Sum Palace on 55th between 5th and 6th, we’re thumping down the steps of Saint Peter’s Church to York Theater Company.
Expectations were low. None of us realized the theater was in the basement of a church…I could practically read the thought bubbles above their heads: “Can you say, community theater?”
I wave the social anxiety away and collect our tickets at the box office. A friendly dude hands me 6 tickets I bought on Groupon and we head to our seats.
“Woah, look at this set design…” Alright it seems like the group is already pretty impressed, and they’re a hard group to please. I mean these are 6 people who heard “musical” and “Shakespeare” and said, “Yup.” Or maybe that makes them easy to please…
Artistic Director James Morgan (endearing, funny) comes on stage, receives a nice applause, and delivers a — long, but informative — speech about the show. I learn this completely original show has received glowing reviews from tons of critics, even the New York Times, and got a 95% on Show Score in its first week, which was just below Hamilton! My body is ready.
While the melodies weren’t as catchy as I’d prefer in a musical, the cast was phenomenal — shout out to LAUREN MOLINA for her hilarious role as Bella Rose. There were only 6 cast members, but everyone was flawless. Not a beat, not a breath, not a key off. I particularly loved how they brilliantly played with volume to blend like silky milk chocolate into the chorus of harmonies, but then would step out and shine with a booming solo on cue.
So here’s the story in a nutshell: loosely based on Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure, the story artfully — and humorously! — explores the curious little peculiarities of the human condition when a man is sentenced to die unless his sister (a nun) breaks her vow of chastity and sleeps with the governor. When the nun frankly refuses (to her brother’s desperate dismay), his lover (Bella Rose, a prostitute) agrees to sleep with the governor disguised as the nun. Suddenly, the prisoner would rather die than see his lover cheat for a single night!
I tip my hat to the writers for respectably maintaining Shakespeare’s original authorial intent. Themes like, “Do not judge others lest you be judged,” the perennial exploitation of women, and “Depravity often walks in pious shoes” are crucial in Shakespeare’s play. In Desperate Measures, every theme has its time to shine: the nun pleads with the governor to have mercy on her brother with a ballad about looking into his heart. He scoffs at her plea as he bluntly delivers his ultimatum (sex, with him), and when she threatens to expose him for what he’s proposed, he calmly explains that no one will ever take her (a woman’s) word against his (the governor’s). Not to mention, the writers played up some concepts that run throughout many of Shakespeare’s plays, like a suspension between faith and reason, and meditations on death and the afterlife: one of the characters is a Catholic priest in the midst of an existential crisis — thanks to Friedrich Nietzsche. In a funny twist on what happens in the original play, when the prisoner asks the priest for words of comfort before his death sentence, the priest plainly says, “When you’re dead, you’re dead,” shocking the prisoner then inspiring his ballad, “It’s Good to Be Alive.”
Unfortunately, this play is no longer running! It was extended 4 times but ended on December 31st. What I learned is that York Theater Company’s got it goin’ on. I was pants-down impressed by this entire production from start to finish. They have shows running all around the country, and have even traveled to Europe with shows like Paris in Texas. I’ll be front and center at their next production.
Desperate Measures is one of my7 favorite “Entertainment” posts on the my7 app. Don’t trust my taste? Check out my other 6 posts…
Download the app in the App Store or Play Store. It’s called my7. You can post 7 favorite things (ANYTHING) in 7 categories (of your choice). Total: 49 favorite things. That’s right, you can only have 49 absolute favorite things, and one of mine is Desperate Measures. My feelings for this play just got real didn’t they?
What’ll make it into your 49?
