SYNOPSIS By J. ELLIS BURDICK ACT I Angelo, a man of Vienna who bears the reputation of a saint because of his strict and upright life, is chosen by Vincentio, Duke of that city, as his deputy in order that certain moral reforms may be introduced without lessening the popularity of the Duke. The latter announces that he intends to visit Poland, but instead of leaving the city, he disguises himself as a friar and secretly watches Angelo. The first victim of the new rule is a young gentleman, Claudio, whose betrothed, Juliet, is with child by him. The deputy invokes an old law which had not been used in nineteen years, and for this offense sentences Claudio to be executed in three days. The same day on which this judg- ment is passed is the one on which Isabella, sister to Clau- dio, is to enter a cloister. On hearing of her brother's trouble, she determines to petition the deputy for his life. ACT II Isabella pleads in vain at her first audience with Angelo, but she arouses in him a passion which had always seemed foreign to his cold nature. At her second interview, he plainly tells her that she can buy her brother's safety with her own honor. She refuses him and determines to tell her brother how her suit has failed, saying "better it were a brother died at once, than that a sister, by redeeming him, should die forever." -3- |