For detail, let me complain that every time the director didn’t understand a line, or didn’t understand Shakespeare’s intention for it, he cut it. So we lost Parolles’ “Marry, ill, to like him that ne’er it likes,” which is Parolles first bit of good advice to Helen. (Reg Rogers is nothing like what Shakespeare envisioned as Parolles, but he handled the part so well that it would the greatest stupidity to complain. And he was well matched with Dakin Matthews as Lafew. Not even I could find fault with their scenes together. Wonderful.)

Helen wasn’t on stage for the Countess’ “Even so it was with me when I was young,” so we had no idea what the Countess was talking about, and the point of the scene went out the window and into the Turtle Pond. Helen got down on her knees, not to beg the Countess’ pardon, but to pick up a bunch of what looked like egg cups that she had dropped. Helen got out a stethoscope and cured the king with a tiny jar of snake oil she had brought with her; so what was the point of Shakespeare’s giving her that magic spell?

Mr. Fudd didn’t understand why Lafew would say “But first I beg your pardon,” so out it went. Nor did he understand the King’s “Our own love waking,” and of course he had no idea why Helen would say “Et cetera,” which makes one wonder if he’d read the play. Mr. Fudd thought it was a mistake for the King to say “I will throw thee from my care forever,” and changed it to the royal “We will,” which Shakespeare didn’t write, because that speech belongs to the morality play structure, in which the King of France stands in for God. God doesn’t use the royal “we.” He says things like “I am that I am.” I doubt that this change could possibly be blamed on the actor who played the King, the intelligent John Cullum, who has been a leading actor for so long that he makes playing the King of the Universe (or, if you insist, King of France) look effortless — and very satisfying it was to see, too. But that’s enough of that.

Bugs had heard from somebody that Measure for Measure was supposed to be a carnival of fun, and that’s how he directed it.

Next I went to see, as a professional obligation, the production of Measure for Measure which was running in repertory with All’s Well, perhaps as another example of “things not to do.”

Management decided to get their director from the same stable that had supplied the director of All’s Well, and since they could not reasonably use Elmer Fudd again, they hired Bugs Bunny. Bugs had heard from somebody that Measure for Measure was supposed to be a carnival of fun, and that’s how he directed it. For the casting, he wrote the parts on cards. Then he flung the cards into the air, and forced the actors in the repertory company to take whatever part he or she picked up. (Either Bugs or the stage manager or somebody had the good sense to palm the card with “Lucio” written on it and slip it to Reg Rogers, who is as good in this production as he was in All’s Well. I hope you have already seen him in person because he is certainly destined shortly for a television series and will disappear from the stage.)

This random casting had at least one good effect. Angelo, who is generally (wrongly) considered an immoral snake and is cast with an actor of reptilian appearance, was played by Michael Hayden, a handsome leading man, somebody with whom Isabel could easily fall in love (though in this production she most certainly did not). For the rest, it seldom worked out. Froth played the part that should have been played by Pompey, and Pompey got Froth’s part, and so on.

After Bugs had cast the play, he ignored the actors, and concentrated on directing the set. The set perambulated itself around the stage at every possible scene-change opportunity (the reader knows that Shakespeare’s theater didn’t have scene changes), and usually wound up wrong, like you when you lose at musical chairs. Angelo’s chair faced exactly upstage so that we had a good view of his back in his first scene with Isabel. We got one throne when Shakespeare’s dialogue specified two. Bugs the director must have sneaked into rehearsals of All’s Well, because he has two gigantic set pieces, staircases, lock and engage in a swooping waltz, like the darling waltzes of the other production.