REVIEW: The Two Gentlemen of Verona by William Shakespeare at Seattle Shakespeare Company. Directed by Marcus Goodwin. With Conor Toms and Daniel Brockley.
Let’s face it: Shakespeare’s “The Two Gentlemen of Verona” occupies a lower level shelf in the Shakespeare canon. It’s believed to be his first produced play and it’s very much the work of a young beginner. The work is tentative, the plotting contrived, and the characters are undeveloped and improbable. And, the last ten minutes of the play are ridiculously rushed and border on the inane. But, it is the first work of our greatest playwright and it offers moments and glimpses of the far greater work to come. And, despite its trivialities, the play can be a brisk, humorful, fast-paced evening of entertainment. Even more promising for theatre-goers is the fact that the juvenile characters and simplistic mismatched lovers plot lend itself to interpretation, adaptation and frequent modernization of the setting making the play very accessible to modern audiences. Happily, Seattle Shakespeare Company has ably staged the lightest of Shakespearean works and updated it’s setting to 21st century California complete with cell phones, Gucci purses, Armani suits, pot smoking hip-hop djs and “Twilight” posters on teen aged girl’s bedroom walls. Their witty adaptation only highlights the universality of Shakespeare’s language and storytelling abilities and makes for an entertaining evening and an excellent introduction to Shakespeare for younger audiences, (sadly not in evidence at the performance I attended; like many “serious” plays at the bigger theaters, I was at the younger end of the audience age demographics…)
Updating “Two Gents” to 2010 California works well for a show that features two sets of college-aged couples and melodramatic plot lines that continues to work well for shows like “The O.C.” or “Gossip Girl”. The play opens with best buds Valentine and Proteus bidding a fond good-bye to each other as Valentine prepares to leave Milan for a long stay in Verona. Proteus is sad to see his buddy leave but is content to stay in Milan with his one true love, the beautiful Julia. But, Proteus’s father has other plans for his son and sends him off to Verona as well, so after a tender farewell to Julia, he too heads off to join his buddy Valentine in the Bright Lights/Big City of Verona. Meanwhile, Valentine has also found his true love in the form of the lovely Silvia, but sadly she has been betrothed to another by her domineering father, the Duke. Things get more complicated when Proteus turns up in town and HE falls in love with Silvia and things start to get even stickier when Proteus starts cockblocking his friend and Julia shows up dressed as one of the Village People. Naturally, love does conquer all, or, at least contrives to get all the right people correctly paired off with their appropriate lover…or do they?
There’s much to like in Seattle Shakespeare Company’s production. It’s brisk direction by Marcus Goodwin and the subtle and smart choices made to update the setting and tone of the text, notably with an ending that addresses the major weakness of the show: the improbable ending and the unlikely retribution of the dickish Proteus, a very unlikable character who behaves reprehensibly. Goodwin doesn’t alter any text, (that I’m aware of, but I’m no scholar) but with a clever bit of staging he solves the problem of the unlikable heroes. Goodwin’s “Two Gents” gives the two ladies, Julia and Silvia, the last laugh and tweaks the plays misogyny with a bit of 21st century feminism. And, both those ladies, Emily Grogan’s Silvia and particularly Hana Lass’s Julia earn that last laugh with finely shaded and wry comedic performances, a singular feat for two roles that are underwritten and vanish for long periods of the play. Ms Grogan’s sly parody of “The Hills” Lauren Conrad is ably matched by Ms Lass’s starry-eyed but spunky performance as Julia, a girl who deserves a far better mate than the ignoble ass, Proteus. And while Lass’s drag king disguise and persona while she is incognito in Verona trying to lure back Proteus is the only overtly “gay” moment written into the play, the director has modernized this production with more than one of the minor character being “lavendered” up and the central relationship of the play between the Two Gents is very much played as a classic “Bromance” teetering on the edge of going a bit further than back slaps and high fives.
As for the “Two Gents” themselves, Connor Toms as Valentine and Daniel Brockley as Proteus, both actors do a fine job as our young protagonists but I found myself wishing that both young actors would lighten up a bit in their portrayals and play up the comedic melodrama in the text. Both of them seemed like characters that had wandered in from another play and both seemed a little intent on being serious Shakespearean actors and letting that get in the way of the comedy. Sometimes it’s ok to ham it up a bit, (Meryl Streep being the most obvious example) and as long as you stay within the parameters of the play and all the actors are playing at the same level of comedic intensity, a little “over” acting can be a beautiful thing. I think most of the cast embraced the teen soap operatic nature of the production and played up the silly melodrama but Toms and Brockley didn’t seem to get that memo; they went for the Tony when they should have been aiming for a Daytime Emmy…
And, one actor who definitely got that “play up the comedy” memo was Chris Ensweiler as the manservant Lance. His broad portrayal of a classic stoner dude is ripped out of the Sean Penn-Jeff Spicolli playbook but the classics, if well done, will always endure and Ensweiler’s performance was by far the second best liked and crowd pleasingest (my new word) of the show. The best? Russ, the English bulldog playing the part of “Crab”, Lance’s constant companion and toke buddy. Ensweiler is an obvious master of scene stealing but he could not even begin to upstage the charms and stage presence of Man’s Best Friend. Russ entered the Center House Theatre a neophyte ingenue and leaves it a bonafide star…but, it also begs the question, WHY did they put a chihuahua on the poster for the play when they could have had the Borgninian charms of Russ?!?!? Didn’t they recognize a star when they had one drooling on their shoetips?
The Two Gentlemen of Verona plays at the Center House Theatre at Seattle Center Thurs/Fri/Sat at 7.30pm and Sat/Sun at 2pm now through April 11th. For tickets, go here. Check it out.
-Michael Strangeways
Photos by Erik Stuhaug
About the Author: Michael Strangeways
