Angelo Critics Flashcards
What does Paul Cheetham say about Angelo?
‘Angelo is lacking in humanity- not the man to exercise discretion and flexibility in law application.’
What does Paul Cheetham say about the initial discussion between Angelo and Isabella?
‘The contrast between Isabella’s lyrical eloquence and Angelo’s dry inflexibility makes the audience condemn his hypocrisy and inhumanity.’
What does Patsy Hall say about Angelo?
‘Despite Angelo’s efforts to clean up the city, he succumbs to the sinning he is trying to prevent.’
What does John Mullan say about characters who want to punish others in the play?
‘Characters who are righteously keen to punish surely have something dark in themselves’
Wasson believes what about Angelo?
‘Angelo is too virtuous, but for this to be worth anything, it must be tested.’
Wasson on Angelo’s character
‘Here is a man, then, who knows what is right, who wishes to do what is right, but who is unable to do it because he is controlled by his passions. ‘
Magedanz on the introduction of Angelo
‘When we first encounter Angelo, he seems to have almost no personal qualities at all; he is his role, all magistrate and no person.’
How does Pennington see Angelo’s sexuality?
‘In the case of Angelo, you are dealing with someone who is obviously a very efficient and competent career man but who knows nothing at all about himself sexually and is very much out of touch with that side of his personality. So that, when his sexuality is triggered off, it is of a very adolescent and uncertain kind.’
1974 Production: Michael Pennington played Angelo in a production directed by Keith Hack, which was well-received.
1978 Production: Pennington also played Angelo in a
1978 production directed by Barry Kyle.
Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC): Both productions were with the Royal Shakespeare Company.
Character of Angelo: Angelo is a stern, moralistic figure who initially revives harsh laws but later succumbs to temptation and desires Isabella.
Reactions to Pennington’s Performance: Reviews described Pennington’s Angelo as alluring, princely, and well-suited for the role, with particular praise for his performance in the temptation scene.
What is Pennington’s view of Angelo’s crime?
‘I felt very strongly that Angelo’s crime is not what he thinks it is. He thinks it is desiring a saint, whereas it is a political crime; it is a monstrous abuse of his position, so that I think the crux of his downfall is political’
What does Martin argue?
‘Angelo lacks self-knowledge’
How does Marian Cox argue Angelo attempts to act in a beyond human manner?
‘Angelo has to learn to moderate the exercise of power, as well as accept that he is only human.’
How does Tony Martin interpret Angelo’s failure?
‘Angelo’s failure is not only a moral failure: it is a failure of understanding what it means to be human’
How does Fiona Dunlop suggest Angelo is used to show the problems of a flawed person having too much power?
‘the character of Angelo has been designed (discreetly) of the problems inherent in investing one flawed individual with absolute power.’
What does Patsy Hall say about those who make the rules?
‘Those who make the rules are as tainted as those who break them.’
What does Paul Cheetham say about Angelo’s implementation of the law?
‘Angelo’s rigid and unquestioning implementation of the letter of the law is contrasted with the doubt, hesitation and reservations of all the other representatives and guardians of the law.’
What does Paul Cheetham say about the strict implementation of justice?
‘the strict implementation of justice by itself, un’season’ed by mercy, is to be deplored as heartless, inhuman and almost at variance with the will of God.’
What does Marian Cox say Angelo is doing when he tells Isabella ‘my false overweighs your true’?
‘he is boasting that his words have greater weight than hers because he is both male and in high office, as well as suggesting that the scales are always loaded in the favour of vice.’
What does Marian Cox say about vice?
‘Vice has no conscience to be appealed to, as Angelo and Lucio demonstrate, and does not play by the rules, which means a wrong sometimes can only be righted by another wrong.’
What does Peter Pick say about Angelo and power?
‘Power, a sort of mental sadism, which is Angelo’s aphrodisiac, is also the Duke’s addiction’
What does John Mullan say about Isabella and Angelo?
Angelo’s opposite is Isabella, but she is also his twin- his fellow absolutist. She too has some extreme attitudes to punishment.’
What does Jackson say about the bed trick?
‘Angelo does not invite our sympathy, but the morality of the device leaves us feeling uneasy.’
What does Jackson say about Angelo and Freud?
‘Isabella and Angelo have both, in freudian terms, sublimated their sex drives. They are ‘in denial’.
(in psychoanalytic theory) divert or modify (an instinctual impulse) into a culturally higher or socially more acceptable activity.
“libido must be sublimated into productive work activities”
What does Jackson say about the unrealistic in the play?
‘Can we really believe that Angelo would not notice that the woman in his bed is not the woman he wanted?’
What does Declan Donnellan think makes Angelo corrupt?
‘The character of Angelo is somebody who believes he is pure, he absolutely totally believes in his own purity, and that is what makes him corrupt.
