Actor’s Measure For Measure challenge at Mold

Apr 18 2008 Flintshire Chronicle

Actor’s Measure For Measure challenge at Mold

FOLLOWING its highly acclaimed production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Clwyd Theatr Cymru is preparing to stage its second Shakespeare play of the season.

The seldom performed Measure for Measure has been listed as one of the Bard’s “problem” plays.

It is topical in that it weighs personal morality against the rule of the law and examines how private behaviour should be controlled by the state.

Actor David Fielder, who plays the Duke, said: “It’s up to us to be good at story telling because mainly people don’t know the story, so we have to hook them from the very beginning. The play changes every second and it’s being aware of that which we find important in telling the story.’

David is making his debut appearance at the Mold venue and is a former member of the RSC who had appeared in numerous Shakespeare plays but has still 20 to go before he reaches his ambition of making the total.

`I’ve got a huge part to learn, about 900 lines. It’s a very intense part and I’m on stage most of the time. I’m also trying to learn to drive so life is very hectic at the moment!

`I didn’t like the play originally but now I’ve got so involved, I adore it. It’s a bit like a farce really in that the audience is allowed to know I am in disguise for most of it and that is already a bond between us.

`It has been described as a “problem” play in that the tragedy and comedy are set back to back but I don’t see that as a problem at all.

`In doing Shakespeare, we anticipate that one in 15 phrases will be absorbed so we try to give people the drift of what is happening.

`I’ve been in about 15 of Shakespeare’s plays and I’d love to do them all but it’s all to do with popularity – I’ve done Macbeth five times! I’ve travelled all over the world doing Shakespeare – the Chinese and Japanese love it, mainly, I think, because they have such a tradition of story telling.

`The interesting thing is that the play was originally set it in Italy but it was rewritten to be in Vienna so it has a kind of Eastern European feel to it. There is a rumour that Shakespeare had the Duke disguised as a friar because, it has been said, James II went round among his people dresses as a friar to find out what was going on.’

Measure For Measure can be seen in the Emlyn Williams Theatre at Clwyd Theatr Cymru until May 3. Ring the box office on 0845 330 3565.