Measure for Measure

Vincentio, Duke of Vienna has temporarily passed all power over to his deputy, Angelo. In his new position, Angelo's first action is to outlaw the act of love making outside the ties of wedlock, anyone found breaking this law shall be sentenced to death.

A young gentleman by the name of Claudio is the first to suffer from this new sanction, as his wife to be falls pregnant with his child.

Isabella, Claudio's sister, nunnery bound, pleads with Angelo to be reasonable. However, to free her brother, she has to make a decision which challenges her every belief and existence.

Hammerpuzzle Theatre was established in 2007 by graduates from Bath Spa University's Performing Arts: Acting degree course and have worked extensively with, and have heavy links to, their in-house theatre company, Full Tilt.

A group of us decided that we wanted to continue to work with one another in the same fashion to which we had been trained; with play, with verve, and with generosity. We wanted to create an outlet for our fellow and future graduates to persist in this rich vein of theatre training. So therefore, Hammerpuzzle was created.

What is Hammerpuzzle? Hammerpuzzle is a single word that we fashioned from an amalgamation of ideas, which best describe and embody the work that we produce. We take a stimulus, most often a classic or renowned piece of literature, and then, through an intense exploration process, we dive in and immerse ourselves in that particular world. Together, we hunt for the essence of the piece. What speaks to us as individuals and as an ensemble What absolutely compels us to tell this particular story Once we have captured this gut reaction to the text at hand, we begin work on placing it all back together again in a completely new, rehashed, re-invented, and relevant form. It is as if we literally smash apart the text (with a hammer!) and piece it back together again like a jigsaw. This completes the picture that we, the company, believe it should be.

Hammerpuzzle believe, and strive to maintain, that our work is forever storytelling, an act of ritual, an event. In other words, theatre that is communally shared between all involved, performer and audience alike, that transcends the everyday normality.