>>REVIEW
TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA
Runs until July 29
Mount Royal College’s Shakespeare in the Park
Trans Canada Amphitheatre (Mount Royal College)
This year, Shakespeare in the Park has made an unusual choice, opting to stage The Two Gentlemen of Verona – believed to be one of Shakespeare’s earliest plays. The play isn’t often performed, partly because it is often considered to be one of Shakespeare’s lesser works and possibly because of its bizarre ending, in which a tense, near rape scene suddenly turns into a happy double-wedding.
The play centres on the friendship between two young men, Proteus (Christian Goutsis) and Valentine (Stafford Perry). While Valentine leaves their native Verona to go to Milan and serve in the court of the Duke, Proteus stays behind, not wanting to leave the girl he loves, Julia (Sam Duff). Shortly after Valentine has left, Proteus’s father decides to send his own son to Milan, reasoning that his relationship with Julia is distracting him from his studies.
In Milan, Valentine and Proteus both fall in love with Sylvia (Meredith Bailey), the Duke’s daughter. She and Valentine plan to elope, but Proteus foils their plans and gets Valentine banished from the city, where he ends up becoming the leader of a gang of bandits. Meanwhile, Julia disguises herself as a man and journeys to Milan to be with Proteus, but finds him trying to woo Sylvia. In the end, Sylvia runs away to try and track down Valentine, Proteus follows her, Julia follows Proteus and everyone meets in the countryside to resolve the situation.
Despite its happy ending, the play’s plot suggests a serious undertone to the work, in which love ruptures friendships and nearly everyone ends up frustrated at one point or another. Director Martin Fishman, however, opts to give the play a light mood, giving it a tongue-in-cheek ’50s motif and building a series of reoccurring slapstick jokes.
The cast are all decent. Goutsis and Perry bring some naturalism to their characters, as their rivalry threatens their friendship, and Duff tries to mine the play’s more serious side in her depiction of Proteus’s jilted mistress. But something about the production fails to gel. Perhaps it’s partly the fault of the text, which provides a happy quick-fix to what seem to be major problems, while in some ways, the production’s light-hearted feel eclipses the character drama that plays out between the play’s central characters and undermines the attempts of Perry, Goutsis and Duff to humanize their characters.
Braden Griffiths, with the help of a dog, provides comic relief as Lance, Proteus’s servant, and Haysam Kadri plays the Duke as a fresh-faced, pistol-carrying businessman. Goutsis plays Proteus as a greaser and adds flair by bringing out an electric guitar to serenade Sylvia. As well, the play’s set changes are accompanied by the soundtrack from Grease. While many of the secondary characters ham it up a bit, Shakespeare in the Park is probably the place to do so. Unfortunately, some of the gags fall flat and the slapstick feels a bit wooden at times, but Fishman manages to create a general sense of levity throughout the production.
The staging of the play works well, with sound carrying easily in the open air and actors moving around the audience. Likewise, the set is simple and adaptable, well suited to the quick pacing of the production, and the rapid scene-changes all come off smoothly.
The play has good moments and the outdoor summertime staging adds to the light mood, but cannot completely overcome the production’s flaws.
This week, the production wraps up its run at Mount Royal College and moves to Prince’s Island Park, running from August 2 to 25. It will play alongside Shakespeare in the Park’s other productions, Romeo and Juliet and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged). |
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