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Measure for Measure

By William Shakespeare - Stage play

Stage playStageACT II, Scene 4

Roles

  • Angelo
  • Isabella

About this piece

Angelo proposes Isabella to have sex with him in exchange of saving her brother's life

Summary

The play is set in Vienna. In the beginning of the play the Duke of Vienna pretends to leave town and leaves his authority temporarily to Lord Angelo, who starts governing very strictly, as a tyrant. One of his decisions is to arrest and sentence to death a young man, Claudio, for impregnating his girlfriend, Juliet, before marriage. In the second scene of the second act, Claudio's sister, Isabella, a chaste and spiritual girl who wants to become a nun, meets Lord Angelo in his house to beg him to spare her brother's life. At the end, after a long conversation, Isabella had proposed to "bribe" him to change his mind. Angelo tells her he will think about it, already considering the sexual innuendo of the proposal. In this scene Isabella goes back to Angelo's house to see if he has changed his mind. Angelo tells her he will spare her brother's life if she agrees to have sex with him...

Tone

Flirting

Use cases

classrehearsal
View on Actorama

Library metadata only. SceneFiend never includes script text here - pick up the published version to rehearse.

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