Summary 
An outdoor design played indoors due to rain, modernized to pre-World War One Italy. Sports-themed - fencing, archery, golf, boxing - with a similar approach to love and romance. Attractive leads and colorful supporting characters: well-directed light entertainment albeit without the expected happy ending.
Design
Directed by Calvin MacLean. Costumes by Dan Wilhelm. Set and lights by Kent Goetz. Sound by Rick Peeples. Fights by John Sipes.
Cast
Darrel Ford (Speed), Keytha Graves (Julia), Ted deChatelet (Proteus), Brian Herriott (Valentine), David Kortemeier (Antonio/Outlaw), Robert Kropf (Launce), Philip Thompson (Thurio), Patrice Wilson (Sylvia), Randy Reinholz (Panthino/Eglamour), Steve Young (Duke of Milan), Meredith Templeton (Lucetta).
Analysis
This production of The Two Gentlemen of Verona is literally as well as figuratively playful. Major characters are introduced as they participate in different sporting events: the tone is frolicsome, although one individual in each vignette is revealed to be rather competitive. The play opens with a spirited fencing match between Proteus and Valentine, both dressed in white and wearing fencing masks. Proteus is the more aggressive combatant, as he will be the more aggressive romancer. Valentine is pushed backward, and he jumps to a bench, leaping high to avoid a swing from Proteus' foil, then ducking low to avoid the backswing. Julia and Lucetta make their subsequent appearance with bow and arrow, taking turns shooting at a large, on-stage archery target. Lucetta punctuates her verbal points about love and romance with resounding, accurate arrow-shots. Then Antonio is seen practicing 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 stands at a distance, leaning to hold a parasol over Antonio's head. Antonio's decisions concerning the lives of the young people around him seem trifling, secondary to his golf game in general and the current putt in particular. After each missed shot, Antonio edges a little closer to the cup at stage-left, until he is just inches away and is finally able to sink a putt, to the fawning applause of Panthino. 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 in their dialogue, and at one point he is bowled over, haphazardly sprawling over the punching bag and onto the floor.
The sportive theme works well for this play. 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 production's set is painted almost entirely dark green and violet. The stage is grass green, the props and the walls at foot-level showing tall blades of grass, with thickly entwining vines apparent up higher. Purple buds and opened flowers abound on the vines, and pairs of putti are visible within the foliage, peering down upon the romantic farce. The setting is pre-World War One Italy, which lends considerably to the theme of darkly looming consequence, although actual detail of the time period is difficult to discern other than from the elaborate costume design. 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.
Portrayals of major characters are for the most part overshadowed by stellar comic performances in a handful of supporting roles. Each protagonist has fine moments in relatively thin characterizations: the moustached Proteus is sneakily conniving, Valentine is charmingly dense, and Sylvia is slinky but sophisticated. In the 1.2 letter scene, a plucky Julia alternates with comic rapidity between detached determination and swooning love-sickness, one moment shredding a letter from Proteus, the next scrambling on her knees to collect the scattered scraps of precious words. Julia modulates her voice with dazzling skill, varying from resonant seriousness to shrill exclamations to melodious wonder.
The supporting cast elevates the production, especially the clowns, Speed and Launce, and the foolish suitor, Thurio. A bespectacled, slick-haired Speed is played with silent-comedy affectation, complete with Chaplineque 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 ("love is blind!") 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, thunderstruck, a huge and oafish grin upon his face. Once understood, Speed triumphantly exits on his bicycle, horn again honking, and he rides down the ramp at stage-left and back through the audience.
Continuing the sports theme, Launce is 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. His facial expressions are marvelous - confused chagrin, vacant stare, earnest fervor - his black-circled eyes and jutting jaw making him seem drunken 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: Crab is portrayed by Colonel Bert, a drooling, wrinkled, black-and-brown bloodhound with drooping ears and melancholy eyes. The two onstage together are a visual delight.
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 slowly 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, and they discuss Launce's love interest in a superbly timed, rapid-fire dialogue.
Thurio is played with abundant visual humor, smarmy and affected in demeanor and over-dressed in flashy clothes. Thurio wears a pencil-thin moustache and slicked back hair, and he brandishes an omnipresent cigarette and brandy snifter. He makes his first appearance within a brightly striped gondola with Valentine and Sylvia as the three are "rowed" onstage. The two lovers gracefully disembark, and Thurio attempts to follow, but with a life-preserver stuck on one leg he nearly plunges out of the gondola, then is comically distracted from their conversation in his attempts to free himself. Thurio's trite character is embellished with a variety of physical mishaps: he breaks his cigarette in half in an insincere embrace with a disgusted Proteus; he unwittingly extinguishes his cigarette in his brandy snifter in an effort to be debonair; he splashes brandy wildly when waving his arms in melodramatic discourse; and his attempts to serenade Sylvia include an awful attempt at a duet with one of the Festival's Madrigal singers.
The screwball comedy continues with robust energy upon the arrival of the outlaws. They are portrayed as spaghetti-western movie bandits, complete with the whistled theme from The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. The swaggering outlaws wear boots, ponchos and cowboy hats, and they threaten Valentine with rifles. Their leader has dual 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. MacLean handles the odd anachronisms with aplomb: a thickly French-accented American movie cowboy appearing in an Elizabethan English play set in 20th century Italy. Valentine's emergence as the outlaw leader is similarly tongue-in-cheek: he dramatically steps from the darkness with a disjointed smile, clad in black sombrero, blazing red jacket, and poncho, his pants tucked inside his knee-high black boots.
All the comedy, games and sports, and all the romances do have 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 Sylvia - perhaps sincerely, perhaps superficially - Sylvia 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, completely 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 Sylvia stay behind. The women appear stunned as they sit together on a tree-log at center stage. Valentine and Proteus return moments later, smiling and holding their arms out to them as if nothing has happened. Julia and Sylvia 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 apparent, thwarting the expected happy ending.
Note: A version of this article was edited and published in Shakespeare Bulletin, Vol.12, No.4, Fall 1994.