The songs I hear in my mind when reading this play are Scott Walker's covers of Jacques Brel: 'Next', "My Death' and 'Amsterdam'.

A complete mess of a subplot that periodically hinges on Shakespeare's favorite thing: people misusing words to an antonymic degree, yet I ate this up. The crucial scene between Isabella and Angelo made me audibly gasp. The Duke is literally insane (THAT ENDING????), and has a wonderfully hypocritical God complex. Elbow made me laugh. The fact that Barnardine kind of just outright declines execution, and he, in fact, doesn't get executed? I live. Lucio roasting the Duke within an inch of his life? Lovely. I also just feel like this problem-play is so current. Let's talk about a broken judicial system (or government as a whole) and the ways in which women's narratives are discounted with ease unless a man performs a whole spiel to have her be heard. Let's talk about men who do work against misogyny but have a white knight complex that perpetuates the misogyny they supposedly critique. The whole court scene is lunacy. It's not a funny comedy, and it seems to break down the tropes of a standard Shakesepearean comedy metatextually. The ending is happy in that no one dies, and the conflict is resolved, and there are marriages to be had. But the marriages are punishments. Shakespeare doesn't even allow what is normally his comedies' alleviating force to do what it tends to do, rather it reinforces the broken social mores, codes, and de jure realities that inflict suffering upon us all every day.

I actually really enjoyed this one. Isabella struck me as one of the strongest heroines that I’ve read from Shakespeare so far. She’s smart, passionate, and loving, with faults all her own that only strengthen her character. Angelo makes for a awfully good villain, and Lucio for a phenomenal comic relief.

I wish it had a stronger ending though. I was anticipating a far better AHA moment from the disguised Duke’s unmasking. Though the way he is unmasked is funny, what he chooses to do once everyone knows that he’s both the friar and the duke, fell short of what I was hoping for.

Finding out after reading all of this, that this play was a jab at the queen that he made legal by setting it in Vienna is too good. That’s what really did it for me.

Would have been 5 stars with a slightly stronger end, but I did enjoy my time with this one very much.

A couple quotes that I noted down:

Isabella?: Go to your bosom; knock there; and ask your heart what it doth know

Angelo: Dost thou desire her foully for those things that make her good?

Lucio: No,—pardon;—‘it’s a secret must be locked within the teeth and the lips

none of the characters behave with any underlying motivation or common sense. enjoyed

A piece that therefore addresses the issues of justice, power, and relationships of domination. What is justice, and should it be applied strictly or not? Who has the right to render justice, the human being, what he is, that is, fallible? Who has the right to govern others? And why does the Duke put Angelo to the test not to go into generalities? But, at the same time, for all the city's inhabitants, why does he want to do justice to Mariana? Claudio is considered condemnable for having slept with his fiancée but not Mariana. She did the same thing (at the Duke's instigation, which is even better) when he broke his engagement. Why does Lucio, who certainly has something to blame himself for, alone bear the costs of the Duke's justice? And what is this way of spying on everyone, pretending not to exercise power anymore? Why does the Duke ask (if you can call it asking because it sounds more like an order) in marriage to one of the young women at the end? We could go on like this for hours.
The ambiguities of the play are also those of the characters. You have understood that the Duke was very suspicious. However, Angelo is a two-faced character who oddly finds his mirror in Isabella. Both fight against human nature and violently suppress their libido; Angelo will not stand the test. As for Isabella, who launches with aplomb to nail you on the spot, "Die my brother!" because she doesn't want to give in to Angelo to preserve her honor. She doesn't care much about Mariana's honor. Well, it should be Mariana who dishonors herself rather than herself! And to find dubious reasons, with the Duke's help(ah, that one!), Mariana is innocent of any sin and wrongdoing by law. And so on, because everyone is more or less suspicious in this room.
It's a shame that the construction of the whole thing is a bit shaky, as has been noted a lot, and in particular, the comic scenes are so heavy. It reminds me of American films, such as Your Majesty or Woody Allen's War and Love, combining downright intellectual winks and a heavy heaviness in a particular form of humor. In Measure for Measure, the comedy focuses on puns, most often hyper-salacious, intervening between more brutal scenes and during these same scenes. Well, let's say it's not my cup of tea.
Measure for Measure is a very ironic title since the Duke's shenanigans lead us to double standards of justice. This work is a play that does not look so much like social or political criticism. However, Shakespeare keeps a reasonable distance from his characters and never reveals a point of view or a moral that would belong to the author. Instead, he chose to show us, in a curious place, into an abyss, characters and a city in the grip of a political and judicial system that also preys on a morality (personal or collective) of extreme shyness and ambiguity. This work is probably not Shakespeare's most enjoyable play to read. How it had written is not necessarily as exciting as the questions it raises. However, it is undoubtedly an eminently problematic piece beyond its name of "problem comedy" in its strictest sense.

I....have very mixed feelings