mor, smarmy and affected in demeanor and flashy clothes. With pencil-thin moustache and slicked back hair, he brandishes an omnipresent cigarette and brandy snifter. He is rowed onstage with Valentine and Silvia in a brightly striped gondola. The two lovers gracefully disembark, but Thurio prattfalls, his leg tangled in a life-preserver. He has a variety of physical mishaps, breaking his cigarette in half, splashing his brandy and singing out of key in an abortive duet with one of the Festival's Madrigal singers. The screwball comedy continues with robust energy on the arrival of the Outlaws, spaghetti-western movie bandits, whistling the theme trom The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Their leader has two six-guns and straps of ammunition across his chest, one nervously chews a long cord of straw; and another speaks in a humorously unintelligible French accent. In Valentine's emergence as the Outlaw leader, he dramaticalIy steps trom the darkness with a beaming and disjointed smile, clad in a black sombrero, a blazing red jacket, and a poncho, his pants tucked inside his knee-high black boots. All the comedy, games. and sports and all the romances do have definite consequences, however oblivious the protagonists may be to them. MacLean makes this clear with his deft handling of the play's difficult 5.4 conclusion. As Proteus apologizes for his attempted rape of Silvia--perhaps sincerely, perhaps superficially--Silvia shakes her head at him, and she appears confident in Valentine's refusal. When he accepts the apology, she is open-mouthed with shock, and when Valentine offers her to Proteus in marriage, she swoons and faints. Similarly, Julia only grudgingly accepts Proteus' hand. When Valentine concludes the play with a blithely vigorous "One mutual happiness!", the men cheer and jubilantly exit the stage, ignorant of the wounded feelings of the ladies. Valentine and Proteus are followed offstage by the clowns, the Outlaws, Thurio, and the...
