Summary 
Shakespeare's little romantic comedy is darkened and twisted into urban social criticism loaded with street violence, drunken nightclub debauchery, and several teenage suicide attempts. A testosterone-driven Proteus betrays a Romeo-like teen idol Valentine amid a rock music score and some a capella versions of U2 songs. The lurid overall result is mixed, too often overwrought but occasionally powerful, the play at its heart still just a simple story of friendship and falling in love.
Design
Directed by P.J. Paparelli. Scenic design by Walt Spangler. Costume design by Paul Spadone. Lighting design by Howell Binkley. Compositions and sound design by Fabian Obispo.
Cast
Andrew Veenstra (Valentine), Adam Green (Speed), Nick Dillenburg (Proteus), Euan Morton (Launce), Miriam Silverman (Julia), Inga Ballard (Lucetta), Brent Harris (Duke of Milan), Natalie Mitchell (Silvia), Gene Gillette (Thurio).
Analysis
The stage for The Shakespeare Theatre Company's The Two Gentlemen of Verona becomes a modern urban wasteland of peeling sheet metal, rusted catwalks, and dark stairwells strewn with rubbish. The opening 1.1 milieu is a late-night gathering of dispirited late teens in a fast-food restaurant parking lot, part of a McDonald's arch apparent upstage right, with most of the kids drinking ("chug! chug!"), some of them brawling ("fight! fight!"), and one drunkenly (and graphically) being sick. The group includes Proteus and Valentine, obvious lifelong friends, along with Speed - who attempts to wipe away a copious amount of vomit while still clutching his ubiquitous skateboard - and the kids seem upper-class affluent and decidedly Caucasian.
Director P.J. Paparelli uses an electronic overhead board for captions that provide location detail as well as wry commentary: in this before-and-after case, "11pm: Teenagers with six-packs of beer" followed by "4:20am: Enough said." In contrast to the metallic urban decay, if only visually, a small colorful set at stage right represents the socialite Julia's home, a velvety purple couch with big throw pillows beneath spinning disco balls.
Paparelli injects some social criticism via blatant product placement - along with the golden half-McDonald's arch, a large blue Chase logo looms stage left and a luminous white Apple logo glows above the catwalks like a bitten moon - with the implication that today's youth is materialistic and slavishly manipulated by advertising. The violence and drunkenness in the McDonald's parking lot sets the tone for the rest of Paparelli's considerably darkened teenage romance, which features pistols and automatic shotguns, a frantic chase high upon the metal catwalks, a switchblade-wielding street gang, and plenty of teenage alcohol consumption and attempted suicide.
Paparelli's youthful cast of characters includes a short-blond-haired Proteus crackling with energy, unshaven in jeans and fingerless gloves, giving his friend a wet willie with a moistened finger in the ear, plus a Romeo-like Valentine, long-haired and moon-eyed with naïve passion, drinking a Red Bull and waxing teen-idol philosophical. Even better realized is Miriam Silverman's diminutive Julia, wearing purple like her stuffed sofa while 1.2 her maid Lucetta belts out "Why Do Fools Fall In Love" - complete with canned but resounding drums and piano chords - as she vacuums and sasses. The two share amusing rapport, Silverman's petite Julia kicking pillows and shredding a love letter as Lucetta struts off singing the Supremes' "My Baby Love." Julia's leap to unplug the vacuum as pieces of her love letter fly in the air is a delight, and for a moment the production feels very much like the expected light romantic comedy.
Paparelli then segues 1.3 to the Proteus home, a kind of ultra-modern spacey art deco living area that gleams with antiseptic anonymity. "General Foods" logos and a navy-blue color-scheme are everywhere, the fancy "G" even on Proteus' cereal box as he stumbles downstairs for breakfast amid a rock-star soundtrack, sitting on a blue-pillowed chair and filling a blue bowl. His father is a nondescript "Father Knows Best" type in striped pajamas and black plastic eyeglasses, working of course on his iBook.
Valentine's new home in Milan, the Emperor's Nightclub - caption: "$20 Drinks. Ouch" - features a white-outlined red Campar logo and dancers gyrating to Beyonce's "Put a Ring on It," a different city suffering the same soulless materiality as Verona. Valentine looks 2.1 at photographs on Speed's cell phone, seated upon a red-pillowed bar stool, while Speed pops cocktail peanuts and steals a shot of liquor. A short-dark-haired Silvia emerges in an elegant red gown from upstage as if having just completed a late-night performance. When she kisses Valentine, Paparelli cuts pointedly to Julia's purple couch 2.2 offstage right, with Julia and a shirtless Proteus contented in post-coitus. Julia steals away his shirt and dashes onstage to prevent him from leaving for Milan, and Paparelli again cuts quickly, this time to a down-and-out Launce 2.3 in a cap and fingerless gloves, waiting at a bus stop kiosk with his big shaggy-haired dog, Crab.
With 2.4 and the introduction of the Duke and Thurio, Paparelli layers some physical menace over his social criticism. The Duke - caption: "He's kind of a big deal" - is a hard-edged entertainment industry mobster with servants and co-workers like bodyguards and hit-men: Thurio is a buff and strutting cross between a wannabe rock star and a hulking assassin.
After Valentine is reunited with Proteus - and the wrenching 2.6 soliloquy in which Proteus reveals his lust and betrayal - Paparelli concludes the first act with his most effective scenes. After Speed and Launce share a 3.1 high five and blow it up - caption: "Downtown Milan: Happy Hour" - Paparelli moves to the Alehouse and Valentine singing U2's "With or without You" almost directly to Silvia, who nurses a glass of beer before joining him in a duet, the lights focused brightly on the two of them. A spotlight then captures Julia on her sofa, the disco balls glittering, and she sings a verse from the song - "my hands are tied, my body's bruised; he's got me with nothing to win and nothing left to lose" - before slashing her wrist with an Exacto knife, blood appearing to trickle down her forearm.
Proteus can then be seen high upon a platform stage over the catwalks as the stage darkens, and he returns moments later as a white-gloved butler at the Duke's formal dinner, his knowing laugh at Valentine's impending disgrace somewhat sinister. The potentially comic confrontation over the concealed rope ladder is played as an explosion of violence: after Valentine's toast, taken as infuriatingly disingenuous, Thurio rises to his feet so quickly that he rattles the dishes, and the Duke throws Valentine down upon the table. When Valentine pulls a gun and rushes offstage in escape, the dinner guests pursue him, racing up and across the catwalks as if in an action-movie rooftop chase. Proteus finally confronts Valentine on a platform, and in anguish that definitely recalls fortune's fool Romeo, the banished Valentine aims his pistol at Proteus, then sinks to his knees and places the barrel into his own mouth to threaten suicide, ending the first half.
The second act begins with some comic relief, Launce sharing a glass of beer with an unusually expressive Crab, then Speed spitting a mouthful all over his friend, but Paparelli quickly returns to the four young lovers. Proteus, now in the Duke's inner sanctum 3.2, drinks Scotch from a crystal tumbler and watches a billiards contest - caption: "Game Night: Ferrari pool table" - that is lost by the hulking Thurio, who angrily snaps his pool cue over his knee. The Outlaws street gang appears 4.1 above them upon a catwalk, wearing denim and leather and earrings, and the scrolling caption reads, "Not the best of neighborhoods." They descend with pimp-roll swaggers to confront the servants, Speed dropping to his knees in fear, and Paparelli moves briskly along, breaking 4.2 to Thurio's horrendous karaoke bashing out of "Sweet Caroline" like a steroid-riddled Neil Diamond, followed by Proteus' tender "Who Is Silvia?" sung with accompanying guitars and Julia watching in disguise - gray cap, cargo pants, pencil mustache - offstage left.
Shakespeare's somewhat muddled late plotting - caption: "The wee hours of the morning" - is streamlined by Paparelli in a progression of stage pictures, from a pear-shaped Eglamour posing 4.3 with a white rose, to Crab upon a table 4.4 drinking from a big bowl, to Silverman's despondent Julia confronting Silvia, who has slapped Proteus across the face in rejection. Julia accidentally surrenders her beloved but obviously taped-together patchwork love note from Proteus before snatching it back, and she shows some reluctance mixed with raw jealousy when she points out Silvia's flaws then hurls her picture frame to the ground.
Paparelli returns Act 5 to action-movie stylings, showing Proteus drinking Knob Creek bourbon with Julia and Thurio stage right: Julia passes out drunk and Proteus throws his drink in Thurio's face then flees as Thurio and his guards arm themselves with frighteningly modern automatic shotguns. To the sound of rock music punctuated by random shotgun blasts - caption: "Do you know where your children are?" - Proteus runs, pausing to fistfight, athletically hang from one ramp, and leap from platform to catwalk and back again. After a brief interlude - Valentine's lovesick Romeo styling of "You're Beautiful" to piano chords - Proteus sprawls in desperate appeal before Silvia like a 1950s rebel without a cause. His infamous response to another rejection - "then I'll woo you like a soldier" - is followed by a lengthy, perhaps over-extended fistfight between him and Valentine, both in jeans and white shirts and closely resembling each other. They beat each other bloody, until Proteus staggers off then back onstage with a pistol. Instead of threatening anyone, he fall to his knees and asks forgiveness, then - in the third attempted suicide among the four young lovers - puts the gun barrel into his mouth.
Shakespeare's emotionally difficult but perfunctory conclusion is handled by Paparelli with substantial irony. Valentine sags to his knees beside Proteus, then reaches back for the hands of Silvia and Julia, until all four are kneeling together. He even thwarts Thurio's armed assault with a bold drawing of his pistol and some sharp commands to the Outlaws. He then re-gathers his friends - "one mutual happiness!" - embracing them as they get to their feet, all of them emotionally drained. Silvia begins a bittersweet final moment by singing a slow and melancholy version of U2's "Beautiful Day," first joined by Julia then the boys. The irony is certainly befitting the tone of the production - "you thought you'd found a friend to take you out of this place, someone you could lend a hand in return for grace" - as the four attractive young people may have learned something difficult and daunting (and maturing) about friendship and love.