THE WEDDINGS IN MEASURE FOR MEASURE. How do I feel about the ending of Measure for Measure? When I first read it fifty years ago, my reaction was that the play was about Shakespeare showing off what he could do. He could take a very serious play dealing with death, justice, and mercy and turn it into a comedy. And he did it with the classic hallmark of a comedy, by concluding not just with one wedding, but with four. And he would do it with creaking machinery so that we could watch him at work.
So I thought then. And after reading descriptions of the alternative endings and seeing the play a number of times, that is still where I come out. The alternatives I have mentioned all turn on the behavior of the characters being more plausible than the characters’ choices in Shakesepare’s version. The strange behavior shows how cumbersome is the maneuvering to deliver the happy ending.