In The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Proteus says:
"For Orpheus’ lute was strung with poets’ sinews,Whose golden touch could soften steel and stones,
Make tigers tame, and huge leviathans
Forsake unsounded deeps to dance on sands."
But in The Two "Gentlemen" of Verona, Sir Eglamour says:
"Hi, my name's Sir Eglamour!"
Director Aaron Posner cuts the first bit, but has time to add the second. Something is deeply amiss when Shakespeare directors feel they can cut the best poetry from a given play but have all the time in the world to add their own cutesy interpolations.
Posner's production at American Players Theatre leans into many upsetting Shakespeareana trends. The first being actors inserting modern tags after early modern dialogue. You know the kind. The following is an approximation:
SPEED: Item, She hath no teeth.
LAUNCE: I care not for that neither, because I love crusts. (Looks at audience member) This guy knows what I'm talking about!
Shakespeare directors have found and keep reinventing their own versions of the MCU's "well, that was weird!" Apparently they feel Shakespeare's language has such a stinging effect that it needs a perpetual anti-inflammatory aid of some self-winking shit-talk.
Let's talk about crowd-work. Comedians know it to be, after prop humor, the cheapest form of laughter. Posner treats us to various instances of mentioned-characters being cast as actual audience members, and thus we get the obligatory "would you stand up please?" from an actor, followed by a sheepish moment of audience participation, followed by a mandatory ovation from a crowd thankful the chosen wasn't them. Is anyone really inspired by this particular brand of "theatre funny?" It feels like most are simply content to laugh in dutiful recognition of a joke -- regardless of quality -- simply having been made at all.
And who started this trend? The trend where every Shakespeare comedy needs a handful of live musicians to "carry" us through the action, giving us redundant context for the play we are already watching. Maybe they're singing folk songs, maybe original lyrics, and maybe they're even snidely commenting on the action! Is modern attention so wandering as to need a perpetual bouncing ball of something, anything to listen to other than Shakespeare's language? The shtick of "oh look, the whole ensemble is going to come out and mug at the audience and sing a jaunty tune of introduction" is as stale as this production's vaguely riverboat Americana setting. Shakespeare directors love their Mark Twain-fused Appalachia: just think of all the bluegrass possibilities! At Judgment Day, I plan on asking the Lord how many different tracks from the soundtrack to O Brother, Where Art Thou? made it onto Spotify inspiration playlists digitally shared amongst Shakespearean theatrical production teams. Surely the billions would flummox Carl Sagan.
The early comedy tells the story of Valentine (Colin Covert) and Proteus (Jonathan Gardner) as they make their way from Verona to Milan, encountering young love and growing pains. Valentine falls in love with Silvia (Ama J. Kuwonu), and Proteus eventually forsakes his initial love, Julia (Maggie Cramer), to also pursue Silvia, and attempt to woo her behind his best friend's back. The play has an adolescent temper, but it's not juvenilia. The verse is regular and heartfelt and the story is the easiest line-for-line understanding experience in Shakespeare. In what may be his first play, Shakespeare gives us a round, unvarnished tale of how the world contorts to accommodate masculine romantic misbehavior.
Even at the beginning of his playwriting career, Shakespeare was already pushing theatrical boundaries by giving us what superficially appears to be a rose-tinted romantic comedy, yet at the narrative’s conclusion we realize we’ve been plunged into a dark-night-of-the soul, and find ourselves questioning the very possibility of romantic comedy, as it irresponsibly sentimentalizes notions of adolescent indiscretion. We see this particularly in the thwarted assault of Silvia by Proteus, an action immediately forgiven by Valentine. Rather than view the troubling ending as a tonal error, it seems far more fruitful to have faith that Shakespeare knew what he was doing, which gives the drama a far more experimental edge than most scholars would believe. The ending causes us to ponder whether or not it’s acceptable to view forgiveness as an ultimate virtue, when so often it is bestowed by those who have no right to present it.
But don't worry, Posner doesn't even go there. Rather than include the action as written, wherein Proteus proclaims his intention to rape Silvia, and then Valentine forcibly stops him, causing Proteus to relent and beg for forgiveness, after which Valentine not only forgives him but appears to offer Silvia to Proteus as an armistice, Posner just cuts that business. You can hear the conversation: "too tough...too uncomfortable...doesn't work." For all of Posner's adaptory showboating of inserting quotation marks over the word "gentlemen" (cuz see, they're like NOT actually gentlemen), he doesn't even end up using the weaponry the play gives you to deconstruct itself. After spending two hours in a rom-com, Shakespeare pulls an about-face and we see how easily a rom-com turns to horror. The ending ultimately pulls the rug out from under us by presenting the critical perspective we would not have known we were viewing had we not been so completely immersed in its opposite. But Posner just cuts the uncomfy stuff, has a girl-boss Julia smack Proteus around a bit for his duplicity, and calls it a day with a wink and a song. "It'll all be okay, Proteus just needed a firm talking-to."
While the faults here are directorial, the cast is genial and well-behaved. Gardner brings lovely earnestness to Proteus' language when he's given the chance, and it's fun hearing an audience react in real-time to his betrayals and caddishness. James Ridge as Launce and David Daniel as Speed have fun moments, though the southern dialects Posner foists upon them are a real drag. The band of outlaws who make the banished Valentine their quasi woodland pirate king are likely the most underrated comedic subplot in Shakespeare: no matter the production, it's hard not to smile at these Penzancian sweethearts posing as vagabonds. Same with the confrontation between Valentine and the Duke (Brian Mani) that causes Valentine to reveal his plot to rescue Silvia: the beats that cause the scheming Duke to worm the info out of Valentine are so ridiculous as to always be charming.
I just wished the director liked the play. Shakespeare needs your love and not your condescension. I don't need directors telling me in their program note this play isn't one of Shakespeare's best. Your job is to tell me what this play can do that none other can. The production seems to have been shot out of a computorial system at Shakespeare Solutions TM. Everything annoying about current American approaches to the bard is on display: the music, the shtick, the self-congratulation. Every critical era has its Shakespearean gripes, and Posner embraces all of them. Also, pick up the pace, we could drive a train through these pauses and chop at least 15 minutes off the thing. Adding forgettable songs with the creator of Urinetown (Greg Kotis) but then not including Shakespeare's original "Who is Silvia" just makes you come across as smug.
We underestimate Shakespeare at our peril. Even his worst play is smarter than you.
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