measure for measure | audience email

This response to MEASURE FOR MEASURE from local theatre artist Matthew Willis simply needs to be posted in its entirety. Thank you, Matthew, for coming to see our show and sharing your thoughts. He also expanded on his thoughts even more in a blog post, here.

To Pacific Theatre and the Honest Fishmongers,

To you both I must extent a sincere, grateful, relieving and cathartic thank you.

Thank you both for putting on a play, "Measure for Measure" that demonstrates why theatre is not dying in the 21st century.

Thank you for giving me a reason to get off Youtube, to shut down Netflicks, to turn off my video games and to come see something more than worth my time, money and attention.

Thank you for showing me a production, a show and a spectacle that was thoughtful to the text, extremely funny, morally inquisitive, smart and blunt, sharp on the ears and smooth on the eyes: a privilege to have seen.

I loved how you brought us into your show, into the play, into the words, rather than alienate us with an unnecessary fourth wall and esoteric isms. I adored your playfulness and your breath that filled the entire room, not just the stage you acted so finely on. I applaud and wholesomely endorse the period-like costumes with modern-like music mixing. Your show's aesthetic should be the envy of Shakespearian productions everywhere. I would be content seeing shows like the one I saw tonight for the rest of the year.

In the theatre community that we find ourselves in, I like to think of myself as a dramaturg. Sometimes an overly critical, pessimistic and doomful one, but all the more because of how much I want to see people make good theatre, great shows and audience's dreams come true. Your production of "Measure for Measure" tonight revitalized me and refreshed my artistic hopefulness in a time where digital media reigns and theatre often forgets what its obligations are to the people willing to invest in it. Your production demonstrated artistic and theatrical value in a way I've only seen in the great theatre creators of our day.

So once again, thank you ever so much, for doing good, being good and giving good tonight. Please keep doing more of this. We need it.

May you break legs for the rest of your run.

Sincerely,

Matthew Willis