by Orissa Arend
If Supreme Court Justice Bret Kavanaugh, the late billionaire sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, or the bully in the While House spoke in iambic pentameter, they would sound exactly like Lord Angelo in Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure. Same arrogant abuse of power and position. Same reckless indulgence of lust. Same high-handed hypocrisy. Same reliance on bribes and intimidation.
In the play Angelo has been left in charge of Vienna by the Duke who hangs around disguised as a friar. He is trying to stamp out an epidemic of loose living, depravity, and debauchery plaguing the city. There are houses of prostitution and swaggering drunks everywhere you look. But who does Angelo decide to pick on? Poor Claudio who got his fiance` pregnant. The law, hardly ever enforced, was no sex before marriage. So to make an example that no one would miss, Angelo has Claudio arrested and plans to cut off his head.
Lucky for Claudio, he has this brilliant, principled sister, Isabella, who is a Catholic nun about to take her final vows. When she pleads with Angelo for Claudio’s life, it somehow turns Angelo on. He offers Claudio’s life in exchange for her virginity. Young Isabella is an equal to Angelo in debate, and she sticks to her guns, her virginity, that is. When she tells Claudio all this, he waffles, emotions all over the place, and finally decides, “Well maybe virginity isn’t really too much to give up so that I get to live” or words to that effect.
This infuriates Isabella who seems to be the only one in the story whose motives are pure. She is determined to expose Angelo, even if no one will believe her.
The Duke, watching all this from his disguise as a friar, then hatches an elaborate scheme designed to unmask everybody’s truth. When it works, he is hoping his savior status will win him Isabella as his bride. But she, the ultimate liberated woman. . . oops, never mind, go see the play.
The acting, with a diverse cast, is superb. Actors bring just the right balance of humor and gravity. Aditi Kapil, is a nationally produced female playwright of Bulgarian and Indian descent. She translated the play into a bit more contemporary English without changing the cadence (iambic pentameter), the dramatic pressure, or the rigor of language. This is part of a national movement which began at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. The Play on Shakespeare spun off from that with 36 playwrights, mostly women and mostly people of color, commissioned to create modern versions of the Bard’s plays.
You can see Measure for Measure, put on by the NOLA Project in the Great Hall of the New Orleans Museum of Art through September 29.
Jeff Thomas
Publisher • Opinion Columnist • Licensed General Contractor • Real Estate Appraiser • New Orleans
Jeff Thomas is the publisher of Black Source Media and one of New Orleans’ most direct voices on civic affairs, economic justice, and Louisiana politics. He writes from the intersection of experience and accountability — as a licensed general contractor,a tech company founder and executive with over 30 years experience, and a businessman who has worked across the city’s civic, media, and construction ecosystems for decades.
His Sunday column covers Louisiana legislative politics, insurance discrimination, housing policy, and the forces shaping Black community life in New Orleans and across the state. Thomas writes in the tradition of Black journalists who hold power accountable without apology — building arguments from data, delivering verdicts from evidence, and speaking to Black New Orleans with the directness the moment demands.
He is also the principal of EA Inspection Services, LLC, a government inspection services company. Black Source Media is his platform for the civic conversation New Orleans has needed and too rarely had.
Selected Articles by Jeff Thomas
Black Neighborhoods Pay the Highest Insurance Rates in Louisiana. Here’s What They Don’t Want You to Know.
They Didn’t Yell the N-Word. They Went to Law School, Bided Their Time, and Rewrote the Constitution Instead.
Vappie vs. Morrell: Why Does Justice Look Different in New Orleans?
The State Has the Money. New Orleans East Just Needs Them to Use It.
The Failure of Mitch Landrieu
Publisher — Black Source Media
Jeff Thomas
Publisher • Opinion Columnist • Licensed General Contractor • Real Estate Appraiser • New Orleans
Jeff Thomas is the publisher of Black Source Media and one of New Orleans’ most direct voices on civic affairs, economic justice, and Louisiana politics. He writes from the intersection of experience and accountability — as a licensed general contractor,a tech company founder and executive with over 30 years experience, and a businessman who has worked across the city’s civic, media, and construction ecosystems for decades.
His Sunday column covers Louisiana legislative politics, insurance discrimination, housing policy, and the forces shaping Black community life in New Orleans and across the state. Thomas writes in the tradition of Black journalists who hold power accountable without apology — building arguments from data, delivering verdicts from evidence, and speaking to Black New Orleans with the directness the moment demands.
He is also the principal of EA Inspection Services, LLC, a government inspection services company. Black Source Media is his platform for the civic conversation New Orleans has needed and too rarely had.
Selected Articles by Jeff Thomas
Black Neighborhoods Pay the Highest Insurance Rates in Louisiana. Here’s What They Don’t Want You to Know.
They Didn’t Yell the N-Word. They Went to Law School, Bided Their Time, and Rewrote the Constitution Instead.
Vappie vs. Morrell: Why Does Justice Look Different in New Orleans?
The State Has the Money. New Orleans East Just Needs Them to Use It.
The Failure of Mitch Landrieu