Two Gentlemen of Vaudeville

I'm admittedly not a big fan of this particular play, since its ending is so weak and unbelievable. Why would the women so quickly forgive the traitorous Proteus, esp. after he threatened to rape Sylvia? But this weekend I saw a surprisingly good adaptation of it at the Shakespeare festival in Stratford, Ontario (which is still playing, by the way).

This production set the play in a 1920s setting: Sylvia is a flapper/actress, Speed and Launce are largely vaudevillian clown figures, the Duke is a theater impresario, the outlaws are gangsters dressed in snappy suits and bowler hats. The play is framed and interspersed with video scenes of silent black-and-white clips. There are songs, some slapstick, and an iconic chase scene. The production even had the cheekiness to insert a scene in which Sylvia and Thurio (both actors) perform the final scene from Othello in an absurdly melodramatic (and thus hysterical) fashion! (Incidentally, the scene-stealer was Crab the dog, who was played by the most inert basset hound on the face of the planet. Adorable!)

However, the cleverest bit - for me - was the tone of the ending. Because the rest of the play was so over-the-top, it felt like a parody. Thus, the ending felt a little more acceptable, since the production was so frivolous. I felt more accepting of the resolution because it seemed that the main point was to resolve the action happily. I'd recommend this production to anyone whose been a skeptic of this play.

NB: If anyone is in the Stratford area soon, I urge you to go see the Tempest. Christopher Plummer is playing Prospero! It was a phenomenal production!