Shakespeare sitcom gets a Freewill facelift
Geoffrey Rush’s seedy theatre manager character has a bit of advice for budding young playwright William Shakespeare in the movie Shakespeare in Love.
“If you want to succeed as a writer,” he suggests – all you need is “comedy, love and a bit with a dog – that’s all they want.”
Tom Stoppard (who won an Oscar for the screenplay) may have been referring to Shakespeare’s earliest attempt at a sitcom, Two Gentlemen of Verona, which is the “comic” offering for the serious-comic duo of plays for the Freewill Shakespeare Festival this year. The play is not one of the Bard’s greatest, but it does feature a quartet of young lovers, a lot of laughs, a girl dressed as a boy, and a demanding obstructive father. Oh, and of course – a dog.
The play remains pretty thin gruel, but the Freewill Players are a talented lot with a surplus of smarts and a lively sense of the absurdity of it all. Kevin Sutley’s spirited open air production in Hawrelak Park is certainly a crowd pleaser. (Sutley is the co-founder of the much award winning local company, Kill Your Television.) For the show to work, the characters must be forgiven for their callow lack of anything that might be regarded as a mature relationship with the opposite sex. In this, one of his earliest comedies, Shakespeare may have been stretching his wings to see how far they would carry him. The relationships certainly don’t have the same resonances as the lovers in say, A Midsummer Night’s Dream or As You Like It.
Sutley sets his play vaguely in modern times and loads in pop tunes, disco and classic Italian ditties – most of which are performed with elan by Sheldon Elter. Oscar Derkx even throws in an impressive array of Rock-God moves.
Two long-time bros Proteus (Derkx) and Valentine (Ben Stevens) are breaking up. Valentine, who says he “wants to see the wonders of the world abroad,” goes a few miles down the road to the court of the Duke of Milan. Proteus, besotted, stays behind in Verona to pursue the enduring love of his life, Julia (Gianna Vacirca). External forces also send Proteus to Milan. The kid arrives and, forgetting all about poor Julia, immediately falls in love with Silvia (Patricia Cerra) – who is Valentine’s intended and, of course, betraying both Valentine and Julia. This being Shakespeare, the infinitely forgiving Julia disguises herself as a page and attempts to re-light the ashes of the passion of the cad who spurned her. Meanwhile, Proteus tries to seduce Silvia, who wants nothing to do with him. Enter the demanding, obstructive father – the Duke himself (a commanding Robert Benz) who banishes Valentine to the forest where he joins a scruffy band of outlaws.
What is a company to do with all this? Well, for one thing – play it for laughs. They come up with some really funny scenes. There is a comic guest appearance by a dog named Alice whose doleful eyes seem to plead forgiveness for “making water against a gentlewoman’s farthingale.”
The swinging setting certainly helps in the play’s casual acceptance of promiscuity.
Sutley directs all this at a blistering pace, probably designed to keep the audience from thinking about how under-baked the characters really are in their merry-go-round search for instant gratification.
If the leads weren’t so good the solid supporting cast would take over the evening. Belinda Cornish’s Launce and Bobbi Goddard as a couple of domestics are so good together they should have their own play.
The traditional ending which has everyone forgiving everyone else is hard to believe. Proteus, frustrated by the lack of reciprocation from Silvia, attempts a violent rape. That may have flown in Elizabethan times but not today – so the company has taken upon itself to re-write the ending. I don’t know if the Bard would have agreed, but it felt right by today’s standards. The audience enthusiastically applauded.
Now about Alice. The little dog is a sure-fire audience favourite. She gets a walk-on at the beginning and although her owner, Luance (Cornish), may refer to her unkindly as “ the sourest natured dog,” she steals every scene she’s in. What a performer. Later, Alice gets a whole dialogue scene with her owner. At one point, the dog sits attentively listening to Launce go on about something. With consummate timing, the animal slowly turns and gazes toward the audience with a look of infinite patience. If this was a cartoon, a balloon would have appeared over her head with the words, “Lord, what fools these mortals be.”
This good-humoured production plays on even days in the Heritage Amphitheatre in Hawrelak Park through July 14.
