At its heart, Measure for Measure is a story about power, morality and hypocrisy. In Shakespeare’s Vienna, a Duke pretends to leave his city in the hands of his deputy Angelo, who immediately enforces forgotten laws against sexual immorality with ruthless zeal. When the virtuous Isabella pleads for her condemned brother’s life, Angelo offers her an appalling bargain – her chastity for his mercy. What follows is a sharp moral labyrinth of deception, justice and manipulation, culminating in the Duke’s return to untangle the chaos he himself has orchestrated. It’s a play that teeters uneasily between comedy and tragedy, asking how power corrupts and whether justice can exist in a world ruled by men’s desire and duplicity.
Emily Burns’ 2025 RSC production transforms Measure for Measure into a modern political thriller that feels startlingly relevant – a razor-sharp, unsettling reflection of our own society. Having directed last year’s stellar Love’s Labour’s Lost, Burns proves here that her directorial vision and insight is second to none and is one of this generation’s most impressive directors. From the opening montage of real-world sexual scandals to its chilling final image, this is a production that refuses to let its audience look away. It’s a stellar vision, brilliantly executed: sleek, precise and utterly unflinching in its commentary on power and hypocrisy. The parallels with contemporary politics are clear, yet never heavy-handed. Burns’ world is recognisably ours – a glass-and-chrome corporate dystopia where moral outrage is weaponised, and private sin is repackaged as public virtue. The result is a show that vibrates with urgency and intelligence.
Frankie Bradshaw’s set design immediately anchors that vision. The stage gleams with polished steel and glass, an environment that evokes both the House of Commons and a corporate boardroom. Glass prison walls descend like instruments of judgement; later, steps emerge for a press conference that feels chillingly authoritarian. The design is both beautiful and brutal, constantly shifting between the sterile order of government and the suffocating containment of surveillance. Live camera feeds heighten this world of exposure and shame – we see the guilty faces of politicians projected onto huge screens, their downfall consumed like entertainment. The audience becomes complicit, both judge and voyeur, a public that delights in humiliation as much as justice.
Lighting design (Joshua Pharo) plays a crucial role in shaping the tone. Soft white light bathes moments of purity and innocence – Isabella’s early scenes as a novice nun – before giving way to cold, clinical fluorescents as the moral decay of Vienna is exposed. It’s a production that uses every visual cue to reinforce its central question: when those in power claim to restore order, who are they really saving?
Costume design from Frankie Bradshaw, too, is faultless in its precision. The men – Duke and Angelo alike – wear immaculate, tailored suits, signifying authority and duplicity. Isabella’s costumes, meanwhile, chart her decline from innocence to exhaustion: childish, doll-like dresses that infantilise her early on, replaced later by paler, more severe tones as she’s worn down by moral hypocrisy. By contrast, Mariana’s wardrobe is sharp and modern – trousers, blazers, sleek silhouettes – a visual declaration of independence and control. Yet even her strength unravels as the play closes: after marriage, her poise dissolves into something quieter, almost tragic, a reminder that even the strongest women in this world are subdued by its structures.
The performances are uniformly strong – one of the RSC’s finest ensembles in recent years. Isis Hainsworth’s Isabella is the emotional anchor of the piece, delivering a performance of extraordinary subtlety. Her Isabella begins self-assured, almost naïve in her belief that moral virtue can protect her. As the story progresses, Hainsworth’s posture folds inward, her voice falters, and we watch her confidence corrode under the relentless pressure of a world run by men. Her final silence at the Duke’s proposal is haunting: a refusal to participate in his power play, her face unreadable yet resolute. It’s an ending that feels deliberately unfinished – a powerful reclaiming of agency rather than acquiescence.
Tom Mothersdale’s Angelo is superbly human. He resists the temptation to play Angelo as a caricature of villainy; instead, he gives us a man twisted by repression and self-disgust. His physical awkwardness – the way he grips his tie, the stiffness of his hands – betrays a man at war with himself. When he finally propositions Isabella, his voice cracks with both desire and shame, and we see the moment his morality fractures. In lesser hands, Angelo could feel monstrous; here, he’s devastatingly recognisable. Mothersdale’s Angelo is the embodiment of the humanised villain – vile yet pitiful, aware of his own moral rot but powerless to stop it.
Adam James delivers an outstanding Duke Vincentio, portraying him as a smooth political operator – charming, self-justifying, and frighteningly believable. His Duke is not the benevolent orchestrator of Shakespeare’s text, but a man who hides behind virtue while manipulating those around him. His control over Isabella and Angelo is chillingly PR-driven, his speeches polished like a televised apology. By the play’s end, when his mask slips and he exerts his authority with explosive male rage, it’s a masterstroke of direction. The audience, lulled into expecting a Shakespearean “happy ending,” suddenly finds themselves confronted with a display of hypocrisy and violence that dismantles any illusion of justice. Burns’ decision to let this anger erupt is inspired – a bait and switch that redefines the ending entirely, exposing the patriarchal undercurrent that Shakespeare’s comedies often leave unresolved.
Emily Benjamin’s Mariana is equally compelling – elegant, poised, and quietly formidable. Where Isabella crumbles, Mariana calculates. Her confidence, her self-possession, and her ability to manipulate the situation mark her as a survivor in a man’s world. Yet Burns’ direction ensures her story isn’t a triumph but a tragedy in disguise: the moment she marries Angelo, her agency dissipates, swallowed by the institution she thought she could outsmart. Benjamin captures this disintegration with heartbreaking precision.
One of Burns’ most striking choices is the use of the live camera feed in the final scenes. As Angelo’s crimes are revealed, we watch his humiliation unfold on massive screens – a public reckoning that feels both cathartic and uncomfortable. The audience’s laughter blurs into gasps; the justice we’ve been craving suddenly feels cruel, performative. Burns uses this to devastating effect, forcing us to consider how easily righteous anger can slip into voyeurism.
This production abridges the original and removes the Mistress Overdone subplot, but the production makes textual decisions in the interpolation of dialogue from Othello, specifically lines from the famous “Willow Scene” between Emilia and Desdemona. These additions are seamlessly woven into the exchanges between Isabella and Mariana, expanding Shakespeare’s original female dynamic into something more layered and profoundly resonant. By borrowing Emilia’s words about male hypocrisy and women’s endurance, Burns allows Mariana to become a far more commanding presence—an Emilia-like truth-teller rather than a quiet accomplice. The “Willow” imagery, with its connotations of mourning and resilience, underscores both women’s shared suffering and their quiet defiance. The result is a moment of breathtaking stillness amid the production’s intensity: two women, speaking centuries-old words, articulating truths about gender, betrayal, and survival that feel painfully contemporary. This intertextual choice enriches the play’s feminist thrust, positioning Mariana and Isabella not merely as victims of men’s decisions but as inheritors of a much longer history of endurance and resistance.
Sound and music (design by Christopher Shutt) weave this world together with remarkable subtlety. The use of Elvis Presley’s Can’t Help Falling in Love during the “bed trick” is particularly inspired – a moment of grotesque irony that collapses into horror as the music distorts. The production doesn’t flinch from the ugliness of sexual coercion, nor does it let the audience forget its systemic roots.
What makes this Measure for Measure so exceptional is that every element – direction, design, performance – serves a single, cohesive purpose. It’s a bold reinterpretation that doesn’t simply modernise Shakespeare but reanimates him. Burns’ production captures the play’s essence while giving it new urgency: a parable about men who preach virtue while indulging vice, about women who navigate systems designed to silence them, and about a society that mistakes exposure for justice.
The show’s finale is epic and flawless. Burns allows the audience to believe, for an instant, that they’re watching a conventional comic resolution – justice restored, couples paired, order resumed. Then, in a breathtaking twist, that illusion shatters. The Duke’s sudden fury, Isabella’s quiet resistance, and the blinding glare of media flashbulbs leave us with a vision not of harmony but of hypocrisy laid bare. It’s a finale that lingers long after the show ends: unsettling, thought-provoking, and utterly brilliant.
The RSC’s Measure for Measure (2025) is, quite simply, unmissable. It’s Shakespeare as it should be – fearless, relevant, and alive. Burns has achieved what few directors manage: a production that honours the original while speaking urgently to the present. Through stunning performances, meticulous design, and visionary direction, this Measure for Measure becomes both a mirror and an indictment of our world – proof that, four centuries later, Shakespeare still has something vital to say about power, justice and the human condition.
Measure for Measure plays at the RSC until
Photography throughout from Helen Murray.
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