Isabella and the Duke are the moral centre of a play that explores a society beset with sexual and political corruption. Isabella's rigid principles have, in the recent past, made her a difficult Shakespeare heroine to sympathise with and this may account for Measure for Measure's relative lack of popularity.
Clare Holman played an indignant Isabella in Michael Boyd's 1998 production. In an interview about how she approached the role, Holman discussed her feelings towards the play: 'I think it is a great play for women. Sometimes Isabella is seen as such a difficult character but most of the women that I've spoken to have found her forgiveness and her getting together with the Duke really moving. In a post-feminist world a lot of people might say, 'We don't want her to be with a man - she's been treated badly so we don't want her to be with the Duke'. But in our production I think it's this sense that for all of us, men and women, we're all fallible, none of us are better or worse, and I've sort of based the performance on that'.
Juliet Stevenson's performance as Isabella (photo 3) brought an intense psychological interpretation to the role in Adrian Noble's 1983 production. Her reaction to Angelo's betrayal of Marianna was papable and full of 'physical passion' (Michael Billington, The Guardian, 06/10/83). Daniel Massey, who played the Duke in the same production, described how Stevenson ' . . . brought to the part a wonderfully defiant and flexible intelligence as well as a painful emotional truth'. (Daniel Massey, The Duke in 'Measure for Measure', Players of Shakespeare 2, CUP, 1988, Edited by Russell Jackson & Robert Smallwood, p. 19).
The ending of Measure for Measure is interesting because Shakespeare did not write any stage directions or dialogue to indicate how Isabella responds to the Duke's marriage proposal.
In Nicholas Hynter's 1987 production, Josette Simon's (photo 2) Isabella was emotionally reunited with her brother and the audience were left with a dramatic, but inconclusive ending, as Isabella silently stood centre-stage and turned back towards the Duke.
Other productions at the RSC have included Peter Brook’s 1950 production with Barbara Jefford (photo 1) as Isabella and Peter Hall’s production which visited the Courtyard Theatre as part of the RSC’s Complete Works Festival with Andrea Riseborough as Isabella (photo 4).
