Near the end of his well known treatment of transgression and surveillance in Measure for Measure , Jonathan Dollimore makes an observation about the world of the play that deserves further consideration by feminist scholars:.
Virtually everything that happens presupposes them yet they have no voice, no presence. And those who speak for them do so as exploitatively as those who want to eliminate them. Although Dollimore's comment about the absence of the prostitutes holds true for the written text of the play, twentieth century theatrical productions of Measure for Measure have largely tended to fill this void by granting the prostitutes a concrete physical presence on the stage.
It might be argued that, by giving this neglected and exploited female population a theatrical incarnation, a performance of the play draws attention to the plight of these women and thereby accomplishes some aspects of a feminist agenda.
However, a detailed review of the recent Anglo-American stage history of Measure for Measure reveals that the specific way in which prostitutes are embodied and employed in a given production determines the extent to which the production constitutes a feminist appropriation of the text.
The treatment of prostitution in performances of Measure for Measure usually falls into one of three categories, which I will refer to as the conventional, lascivious, and adverse portrayals.
