This lively, fairly fast-paced production has some appealing performances and a number of attractive visual effects, but director Gabouri's imposition of a "vaudeville" motif hasn't the intellectual underpinning to make any sense. The silent-screen physical-comedy look of the interpolated slapstick doesn't connect with the conceit that Sylvia and her rejected suitor, Thurio, are performing a dreary Othello in a Victorian theater troupe. And the supposed gangsters who kidnap many of these leading characters in the woods are garbed and played in yet another style. How about some dancing dogs? I really like dancing dogs.
Among the comedy's difficulties is the fact that the central hero is a supposed model of steadfast, perfect love and friendship who betrays his closest friend and his beloved, the two lead women are described as remarkable but treated as pawns, and truly serious challenges are solved by easy reversals and instant forgiveness. Much of the comedy's story of Proteus [changes a lot, see?] and his deserted love Julia, and Valentine, Proteus's great buddy, and Valentine's beloved Sylvia is interrupted by entirely extraneous subplots. It would be bitter and satirical if taken seriously.
But it seldom is. Two Gentlemen of Verona is very early Shakespeare and offers barely a hint of what would come later, so it's not taken very seriously. Still, at least two re-workings -- one daffy Broadway musical and several versions of Robin Phillips' dazzling version -- have delighted many audiences. Before Phillips' simplified Two Gentlemen at Stratford in 1975, I saw its wonderful original in London in 1969. Its onstage swimming pool, jeweled sunglasses, British Scout uniform for Sir Eglamour, etc. illustrated my belief that the best and worst approaches to Shakespeare sound much alike in basic description. The difference lies in a "What if we tried ?" approach versus a complete central concept. Gabouri's Two Gentlemen looks like a "What If?".
The talented cast has learned to perform some very tricky shtick, but it has no anchor and gets few laughs, even from the very receptive opening night audience. Robert Persichini makes little impression as Launce but nicely supports the dog, Crab. I'll admit, to be fair, that Patrick Stewart -- already bald in 1969 and showing muscles on his muscles -- was the only Launce I've ever seen who didn't have his scenes stolen by the dog. Gareth Potter manages to make Proteus likable but is otherwise pallid. And Claire Lautier's Sylvia is remarkably unmemorable, considering that she has the best focus of anyone in the play: spot-lit solo speeches on a raised level upstage-center, interpolated starring scenes as Desdemona, undressing scenes, and finally carried through the woods, to be the center of a fight scene.
Contrastingly, for all that her Julia suffers, especially that "disguise" as a man, Sophia Walker is dynamic and lovely in that awkwardly written role. Handsome Dion Johnstone has sufficient stage-command to make a strong, favorable impression as the put-upon Valentine, even though he has to interrupt his heroic resistance and defeat of Proteus to unaccountably embrace him. And Otto played Crab with relaxed ease.
