Data Bases • Custom Term Papers • Free Term Papers • Free Research Papers • Free Essays • Free Book Reports • Plagiarism? Links • Top 100 Term Paper Sites • Top 25 Essay Sites • Top 50 Essay Sites • Search 97,000 Papers @ DirectEssays.com • Search 101,000 Papers @ ExampleEssays.com • Search 90,000 Papers @ MegaEssays.com Free Essays • Term Paper Sites • Chuck III's Free Essays • Free College Essays • TermPaperSites.com • My Term Papers • Get Free Essays • Essay World • Planet Papers	Search Lots of Essays Back to Subjects - Theater The Two Gentlemen of Verona The Two Gentlemen of Verona Presented by ILLINOIS SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL at WESTHOFF THEATRE, Normal. IL. July 3-August 5, 1994. Directed by Calvin MacLean. Set and lighting by Kent Goetz. Costumes by Dan Wilhelm. Sound and music by Rick Peeples. Choreography by Connie de Veer. Fights by John Sipes. With Darrel Ford (Speed). Keytha Graves (Julia), Ted deChatelet (Proteus). Brian Herriott (Valentine), David Kortemeier (Antonio, Outlaw), Robert Kropf (Launce), Philip Thompson (Thurio), Patrice Wilson (Silvia). Randy Reinholz (Panthino, Eglamour), Steve Young (Duke of Milan), Timothy F. Griffin (Host), Jason Maher (Outlaw), Meredith Templeton (Lucetta), Isaac Triska (Outlaw), and others. In this production of The Two Gentlemen of Verona, major characters are introduced as they participate in different sporting events. While each vignette is frolicsome, one individual in each is revealed to be rather competitive. The play opens with a spirited fencing match between Proteus and Valentine, both dressed in white and wearing dancing masks. Proteus is the more aggressive combatant, as he will be the more aggressive romancer, pushing Valentine backward and pursuing him. Julia and Lucetta make their subsequent appearance with bow and arrow, taking turns shooting at a large onstage archery target. Lucetta punctuates her verbal points about love and romance with resounding accurate arrow-shots. Then Antonio is seen practising his putting on a make-shift green while chatting with an obsequious and heavily-oiled Panthino. While Antonio laboriously readies himself for a simple putt, crouched low over a golf ball, Panthino holds a parasol over his head. Antonio's decisions concerning the lives of the young people around him seem trifling, secondary to his inept golf game. Lastly, Speed appears as if within the gymnasium of Valentine's health club. He tries to hold the heavy bag steady while his frustrated master punches at it. Speed is overwhelmed by the physical exertion, brokenly shouting his lines. Director Calvin MacLean connects these opening images of leisure games with the later romantic antics of the male protagonists. Romance is approached as if just another frivolous game, conducted with selfish disregard for consequences and wounded feelings. The set is dark green and violet. with a grasslike surface and thickly entwining vines higher up. Purple buds and flowers abound on the vines, and pairs of putti are visible within the foliage, peering down upon the romantic farce. The period is pre-World War I Italy. Jaunty piano music plays during interludes and set changes, contributing to the whimsical atmosphere, as do a variety of clever staging techniques. For example, a baby grand piano, central to the 2.5 ballroom scene, is simply turned around to become the roulette and gaming table of the Duke's private 3.1 party. Each protagonist has fine moments in relatively thin characterizations: the moustached Proteus is sneakily conniving, Valentine charmingly dense, and Silvia slinky but sophisticated. Keytha Graves excels as a plucky Julia, especially in her 1.2 letter scene, one moment shredding a letter from Proteus, the next scrambling on her kneesto collect the scattered scraps of precious words. While the lead roles are effective, the supporting cast elevates this production, especially the clowns, Speed and Launce and the foolish suitor, Thurio. Darrel Ford portrays a bespectacled, slick-haired Speed with silent-comedy affectation, complete with Chaplinesque bowler and moustache and Stan Laurel-like physical mannerisms. He enters one scene upon a bicycle honking the horn as he rides through the audience and up the ramp at stage right. His efforts to make Valentine understand that Silvia loves him are exasperating for Speed; at one point, he falls to his hands and knees in frustration and pounds the stage with such force that his spectacles and bowler fly off. When the dim-witted Valentine finally realizes what Speed is talking about, he spins and faces the audience, thunder-struck, a huge and oafish grin upon his face. Once understood, Speed exits on his bicycle, horn again honking, down the ramp at stage left and back through the audience. Robert Kropf portrays the buffoonish Launce attired as a baseball player with black stirrups, a green pin-striped dress shirt beneath a vest, and a too-low baseball cap with the brim flipped up. Kropf's facial expressions are marvelous--confused chagrin, vacant stare, earnest fervor--his black-circled eyes and jutting jaw making him seem bemused and oblivious. He constantly wields a baseball bat, using it as a support and a walking stick, even as a mock-rifle when he joins the outlaws. His companion, Crab the dog, is almost as amusing to behold as Launce himself: a drooling, wrinkled, black-and-brown bloodhound with drooping ears and melancholy eyes. The comedic chemistry between Speed and Launce is the highlight of the production, especially their interaction during the 3.1 "item" scene. The sequence begins with sophisticated decorum at a formal ball held by the Duke. The gentlemen are attired in tuxedoes and two-toned wing-tips, and they slowIy dance with ladies in splendid black evening gowns. Speed and Launce are white-gloved butlers with serving trays, but they embrace and dance a quick tango before assuming their duties. Launce in formal wear but still sporting his baseball cap, flips the brim up cockily as Speed takes an opportunity to pound out a jarring tune on the grand piano. His playing halts the formal dancing, and when the Duke appears behind him, he jolts with astonishment from the bench and crashes to the floor. Once alone onstage, the two clowns sit, stand, and sprawl upon the piano, discussing Launce's love interest in a superbly timed, rapid-fire dialogue. Philip Thompson portrays Thurio with abundant visual humor, 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 Duke, but Julia and Silvia stay behind. The women appear stunned as they sit together on a tree-log at centerstage. Valentine and Proteus return moments later, smiling and holding their arms out to them as if nothing has happened. Julia and Silvia stand and walk away, then turn and glare fiercely at the men. The lights go out, and the consequences of the romantic escapades are made vividly apparent, thwarting the expected happy ending. Bibliography: none Word Count: 1301
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