Casting Complete for Public Theater's Measure for Pleasure

By Robert Simonson
06 Feb 2006

Susan Blommaert and Saxon Palmer have been added to the cast of Measure for Pleasure, a new play by David Grimm, which will debut at the Public Theater on Feb. 21.

They join the already announced Euan Morton, who was nominated for a Tony for Taboo, and Michael Stuhlbarg, a nominee for The Pillowman, as well as Suzanne Bertish, Wayne Knight ("Seinfeld," Sweet Charity) and Emily Swallow.

March 8 is the opening.

The piece, directed by Peter DuBois, is described as a "Restoration comedy meets modern sex farce" which explores "the elusive nature of happiness; featuring mistaken identities, duels and double-dealings, gay marriage, and the obligatory sex cave."

Certainly, the characters have Restoration-like names and a tangled story of lust and intrigue common to the period. The plot concerns one Will Blunt (Stuhlbarg), who is in love with Molly (Morton), a young transvestite prostitute, who in turn falls for Dashwood, a handsome womanizing rake. Other characters are called Lady Vanity Lustforth and Hermione Goode.

Grimm has toyed around with past eras in English history before. His Marlowe, which ran at the Public in 2000, was about the dastardly and mysterious playwright of Elizabethan times.

The title of his new work, meanwhile, evokes Shakepeare's famous "problem" play Measure for Measure.