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Two Gentlemen of Verona at The Guthrie Theater on 2/3/09

Randy Reyes (Speed), Jim Lichtscheidl (Lance) and Wyatt Jensen (Crab) in the Guthrie production of William Shakespeare’s The Two Gentlemen of Verona, directed by Joe Dowling. Photo 2009 © T. Charles Erickson

Stanley Wells, renowned Shakespeare scholar and editor of several Oxford Shakespeare volumes, has suggested Two Gentlemen of Verona - affectionately known as Two Gents - “succeeds best when subjected to adaptation, increasing its musical content, adjusting the emphasis of the last scene so as to reduce the shock of Valentine's donation of Silvia to Proteus, and updating the setting.” In the Guthrie Theater’s first production of this play in their 45-year history, all of these are true. The result is that the Joe Dowling directed production is well worth the close to three hours you’ll spend in the Wurtele Thrust. Shakespeare himself would have enjoyed this staging, I think, in terms of both the modern updates and how the production makes no bones about its intent to keep the audience actively engaged throughout.

Two Gents definitely had its moments, and it was clear from the way laughter was dispersed throughout the room, that different people will enjoy the show for different reasons. There were times in the first half of the production that I felt it dragged a bit, but with a strong start after the break, I immediately forgave any drift I sensed going into it. The single intermission just over halfway through the five-act play is sufficient.

This may sound like a backhanded compliment, but Riccardo Hernandez’s set was so physically and technically cool that it was downright distracting. Dowling has set his adaptation in a television studio in 1955, where a bustling production crew is about to broadcast Two Gents live to a nationwide TV audience. While my attention was focused on watching the huge old TV cameras – one of which slid side to side across the front of the stage - and the remarkably authentic-looking antiqued image projected on the screens hanging on either side of the stage, I actually forgot to pay attention to the action of the play for nearly the entire first scene! It took a while to come to grips with the fact that yes, I was indeed seeing actual live action displayed on the screens. (As the play went on, my mind continued to be drawn back to trying to figure out the technology of how this was all being done and even spent time deducing that GTF in the made up call letters WGTF on the sides of the cameras likely stood for “Guthrie Theater Foundation.”)

Fortunately this was Shakespeare, and like much of the audience I already had some familiarity with the story. (Some of this same play even made it to the big screen in John Madden’s 1998 film Shakespeare in Love). And with Shakespeare, once you know the story, it’s sometimes tempting and even pleasurable to simply get lost in the music of the language itself.

In short, Two Gents is a tale of two young men, Valentine (Sam Bardwell) and Proteus (Jonas Goslow), and the events that befall them after they set off on a journey to Milan. Both men fall in love with the same woman, Silvia (Valeri Mudek) for a period of time and complications obviously ensue. Proteus’s original and true love interest from Verona, Julia (Sun Mee Chomet), disguises herself as a man and gets hired on as his page in an attempt to keep tabs on him.

While the four central characters around whom the plot revolves were all portrayed with proficiency, theater-goers’ will likely more easily recall the characters of the two servants, Lance (played with consummate comedic care by Jim Lichtscheidl) and Speed (played by consistent audience favorite Randy Reyes). Their tangential involvement adds a sub plot, which like the “play within a play” in Midsummer Night’s Dream sometimes almost steals the show. Both Lichtscheidl and Reyes played directly to the audience, even chastising us for not getting the jokes when we were a little slow on the uptake. At one point, missing the laugh, Lichscheidl even says, “Come on, it’s Shakespeare, give me a hand here.” Lance and Speed’s interaction combined with Shakespeare’s sometimes bawdy wordplay produced the intended groans from the audience and at times their comedy bordered on something you might have seen on The Three Stooges. It’s worth seeing the production just for Lichtscheidl’s and Reyes’s performances alone, and that’s not even mentioning Lance’s canine companion, Crab, played by a real dog credited as Wyatt Jensen.

Original music and lyrics for this production were written by Keith Thomas, and many (though not all) of the songs were sung by Sasha Andreev, who played a sort of 1950s style wedding singer. There were almost too many song breaks in the production, but I think this was meant to add intentional cheesiness since near the end of the play one of Valentine’s rivals, Turio (John Skelley) walked past the singer on his bandstand, looked at him, shook his head and said, “Oh would you shut up!” articulating what was likely on the mind of many audience members by this time.

This is a comedy, of course, so the deceptions are revealed, misdirected affections have sorted themselves out by the end, and we are left to assume the right boy will marry the right girl and everyone will live happily ever after. The show ends with “all stars back on stage in a veritable super nova of dance” routine that’s a mini production in itself.

Two Gentlemen of Verona runs through March 29, 2009.

Location Info: The Guthrie Theater
Artist Info: Guthrie Theater

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