The Character Elbow in Shakespeares Play, Measure for Measure Essay

The Character shove in Shakespeares Play, Measure for Measure In Act 2, scene 1 of the play Measure for Measure the parting Elbow, a representation of the Comedic Constable often depicted in William Shakespeares comedies and traji-comedies, gives the director an unusual creative license in portraying this figure to give the audience a rich theatrical experience. (Evans 427) These characters are most commonly depicted as artless, inadequate, nave, and prosaic men who bumble through their official duties, sublimely unaware of their blunders, intent upon fulfilling their offices even when they are not really sure just what those offices are. (Evans 427) They are honest men as well, duteous, as none of Shakespeares curious policemen reveals any conscious neglect of duty. (Evans 430)In one high school production of the play Measure for Measure which I saw a time ago, the character Elbow was played as sort of a village idiot, using a slack-jawed southern accent. The actor almost ap peared to be attempting to portray Elbow as a drunkard as well, which I later found through research was not the stereotype that Shakespeare was trying to mock at the time. I enjoyed the comedic representation of the character, but I now think that he could have been more effectively portrayed like the character Dogberry was in Shakespeares Much stir About Nothing, especially the most recent performance at Loyolas McManus Theater by Uzay Tumer. This performance can rather illustrate the character more as a man self-confident in his actions and duties who is plagued with an inability to communicate to the other characters. Elbows speech and logic just becomes riddled with self-contradictory malapropisms which confuse those wish... ... probably the principal(prenominal) reason I have drawn out this scene into a huge collaboration of expressions. Confusion, exasperation, confidence, perplexity, happiness, frustration, and sheer amazement are all of which I treasured to capture i n this brief interaction. Works CitedBennett, Josephine Waters. Measure for Measure as Royal Entertainment. New YorkColumbia University Press, 1966 31.Dawson, Anthony B. Measure for Measure, New Historicism, and Theatrical Power.Shakespeare Quarterly, Vol. 39, No. 3., 1988 337Evans, Hugh C. gay Constables--Fictional and Historical. Shakespeare Quarterly, Vol. 20, No. 4., 1969 427, 430Ross, Lawrence J. On Measure for Measure. Newark University of Delaware Press, 1997 52.Shakespeare, William. Measure for Measure. Ed. Barbara A. Mowat. Paul Werstine. New York Washington Square Press, 1997 43.