Vincento, the Duke, can't bear to bring the law down on his citizens himself. So he appoints a deputy. Then he sticks around in disguise--he wants to see whether power will pervert the poor deputy. Angelo, the once-Puritan deputy, threatens Isabel: Either you sleep with me or I'll have your brother killed for sleeping with that girl. Isabel, the heroine, with majestic certitude: "More than our brother is our chastity." A cutup from an Ex bench: "Come off it, sistah."

These people are from Measure for Measure and they won't put you in garden party spirits. (Neither will the numerous jokes that only a Shakespearean scholar can chortle over, nor the soliloquies, especially if you are secretly ambivalent about soliloquies.) But Measure for Measure isn't a daisies, quick laughter, jasmine tea affair. It's menacing. Daniel Seltzer's production wasn't menacing enough. We didn't feel oppressed as Angelo, Claudio, the studs, even Isabel fell under the repressive law. So the transformation at the end of the play from life under law to life under grace wasn't a wonder. More routine than relieving.

The cast wasn't always inspired either--too many of those turn-away-from-the-stage spots. Actors swallowed lines as though they hadn't eaten for weeks. They took unnecessarily hearty pleasure in driving home puns we wouldn't understand. They walked like cowboys if they were friars and like six-year-olds if they were pregnant women.

Still, they had some lovely moments. John Pym (Elbow) is one of those clowns who looks like he's going to pull the same funny gesture twice and stop your laugh -- and then never does. He's the one with the rubbery face and the fedora. Charles Degelman, always a delight on stage, played Luciao in blue stripes. His friends, also dressed modly, performed less and paraded more. In larger parts, Mary Moss as Isabel and John Appleby as Angelo brought out the best in each other. She was passionate. He responded. She recoiled violently -- she wanted to save a brother, not receive a lover. He hated her rejection, became brutal. I'd go see the scene twice more. John Mac-Fayden's (Claudio) scene in his cell with Miss Moss ticked along too. I didn't like David Hammond as Vincento. Some faults were the part's; some his. He behaved like a busybody old maid and the way he swept around the stage propelled by long thin whirring hands didn't help.

There wasn't much design to Toby Hurd's set: Alan Symonds' lighting touched it up.