Scholars diplomatically term the six years from 1588 through 1594 Shakespeare's "apprentice phase." Although he wrote the seductively treacherous Richard III during this time, the boisterous comedies he created were comparatively lightweight foreshadowings of sophisticated work to come. Florida Playwrights' Theatre (FPT) in Hollywood plucks two frisky comedies from these early years for its Third Annual Shakespeare Festival: The Two Gentlemen of Verona, about the misadventures of two friends in love, directed by Angela Thomas, and The Comedy of Errors, a raucous farce about two sets of identical twins, directed by Matthew Regan. And, for the third year in a row, this small company without formal Shakespearean training proves it can serve up Elizabethan theater on a par with more experienced companies.
If you leave these productions without any famous lines ringing in your ears, don't blame yourself for not listening closely enough. The brilliant and eminently quotable gems that glitter throughout Shakespeare's masterworks don't show up here. What you will remember is a plethora of cynical exchanges about the fickle nature of love, witty jabs at marriage, abundant wordplay (including puns, double-entendres, and sexual innuendoes), and enough plot twists to challenge your powers of concentration.
Directors Thomas and Regan seem unfazed by the demanding language and complicated plotting. Each brings a clear-eyed sensibility to the direction. If in places some of their choices seem predictable, we forgive them because ultimately each production is feisty, down-to-earth, and marked by a sense of zany celebration.
Director Thomas opens Two Gents with a nice touch that doesn't appear in the original text but which deftly sets the pace for the recurring verbal sparring. Best buddies on the cusp of manhood, Valentine (John Manzelli) and Proteus (Paul Thomas) bound onto the stage with their swords crossed and fence during their opening speeches: Valentine announces that he is off to Milan and teases Proteus about being too lovesick over Julia (Lissa Grossman) to have the strength to go with him. Proteus, in turn, defends amore.
When his father insists that he join Valentine, Proteus swears his love to Julia forever, then leaves Verona. In Milan, Valentine, once contemptuous of love, has lost his heart to the duke's daughter Silvia (Julia C. Brown). When Proteus arrives at court, he falls in love with Silvia as well. An antic series of scenes follows, depicting betrayal, banishment, outlaws in the forest, and Julia dressing as a boy in order to reclaim her sweetheart. In the end, of course, all the alliances are sorted out and the duke gives his blessing -- the marriages that end most Shakespearean comedies happily occur.
Director Thomas has no illusions about her protagonists. With clean, clipped, and unsentimental direction she coaxes Manzelli and Paul Thomas (her real-life husband) into revealing Valentine and Proteus for who they are: foolish youths, inconstant in matters of the heart. In keeping with this vision, Manzelli and Thomas act like high school teammates, equating falling in love with scoring points. Thomas imbues Proteus with an almost naive arrogance; the character seems to believe he can have exactly what he wants merely because he wants it. Manzelli's Valentine play-acts at being a man. When the character hears he is to be banished, however, the actor reveals the boy within by petulantly curling into the fetal position and whining with despair.
The play's two gentlewomen possess far more integrity and strength of character, standing by their men no matter how much those men test their patience. In a spunky performance, Grossman balances Julia's woman-who-loves-too-much devotion with enterprising gumption. (The character is a precursor to the fully realized heroines of Shakespeare's later comedies, As You Like It's Rosalind and Twelfth Night's Viola, who also dress as boys in order to snare husbands.) At first, as Silvia, Brown doesn't do much more than smile like the love object her character is; when Silvia learns how ready Proteus is to two-time Julia, however, the actress's outrage goes into impassioned overdrive.
Shakespeare's characters reflected the fixed social order of Elizabethan England. Along with members of the aristocratic and merchant classes, a canny servant or two is indispensable to make a Shakespearean comedy, well, a Shakespearean comedy. Here, Valentine's steward Speed (expertly played tongue-in-cheek by the nimble Andre Todd Bruni), Proteus's valet Launce (wittily rendered by Matthew Regan), and Julia's maid Lucetta (given a saucy interpretation by Lori Dolan) parody the tribulations of the main characters with clownish story lines of their own.
This production does hit a few dissonant notes. Thomas elicits an overly exaggerated performance from Hardy Louihis as a nobleman. And she buys a few cheap laughs by having Paul Waxman, as a servant named Panthino, lisp, mince while he walks, and gaze fondly at the backsides of the male actors. Still, the otherwise crisp direction and lively performances make for an animated evening.
Like an agile troupe of Elizabethan players schooled in multiple roles, twelve FPT company members appear in both Two Gents and Errors. Of them, Regan wins the award for most versatile, acting in each, designing the shared set, and directing the very convoluted action of Errors.
When a writer uses the device of mixed-up twins in a comedy, possibilities for madcap farce abound. In Errors, Shakespeare multiplies the craziness quotient by two. In ancient Asia Minor, a young merchant named Antipholus of Syracuse (Jay Colligan) and his servant Dromio of Syracuse (Duncan Pflaster) were separated as infants from each of their identical twins during a shipwreck. Twenty-three years later, they arrive in the city of Ephesus where, unbeknownst to them, their twins (Antipholus of Ephesus, played by Paul Thomas, and Dromio of Ephesus, played by Paul Waxman) live. Dromio of Ephesus crosses paths with Antipholus of Syracuse, thinks he is Antipholus of Ephesus, and sets in gear a play's worth of mistaken-identity episodes whose mayhem rivals the looniest of the Marx Brothers' films.
Clueless already? Don't worry. FPT provides a synopsis that you can consult throughout. Besides, part of the fun in Errors is having no idea what is going on. Regan does a fine job of choreographing the chaos, throwing in plenty of behind-kicking, head-boxing, ear-pulling, foot-stomping, and jumping into each other's arms. He also handles crowd scenes well. He whips an absurd situation into a hilarious froth when, with servants and several merchants in tow, Antipholus of Ephesus is refused entry to his own house. And the unveiling of the true identities at the end, with the twenty-plus cast members on-stage, proves richly satisfying.
In one area, the direction doesn't work: Regan goes for an obvious and extreme display of rage as the frustrations over mistaken brothers reach the level of screamfest toward the end. In particular, Thomas's tantrumlike anger could use some reigning in. A subtler, more smoldering interpretation would lend the proceedings more weight.
As she did in Two Gents, Lissa Grossman shines, this time as Antipholus of Ephesus's shrewish wife Adriana, whose complaints about marriage will touch a chord in many modern spouses. (Again, this character recalls other Shakespearean heroines: Katherina in The Taming of the Shrew and the barbed-tongued, independent-minded Beatrice of Much Ado About Nothing.) Julia C. Brown provides perfect counterpoint as Adriana's unmarried sister Luciana, who is certain she will be content once she becomes a wife.
The two Dromios (played by Pflaster and Waxman with glee) look so much alike I could barely keep them straight. In contrast, the actors playing Antipholus, although they share similar builds and sport dark hair and beards, would never be taken for each other. These brothers are further distinguished through characterizations: Thomas's Antipholus is hot-headed and mercurial, while Colligan's takes a more languid approach to life, as evidenced by his smooth wooing of Luciana. This discrepancy works: One set of twins looking and acting so much alike, and the other set not, plays off the audience's acceptance of the preposterous plot in the first place. Where the almost identical Dromios encourage our belief in the likelihood of two sets of twins encountering each other, the different Antipholuses accent the absurdity of the situation.
A bit of trivia for aficionados: Both plays inspired Broadway musicals. A rock version of Two Gents produced by Joseph Papp and the New York Shakespeare Festival debuted in 1971, with music by Hair composer Galt MacDermot and lyrics by Six Degrees of Separation playwright John Guare. Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart, and George Abbott turned Errors into 1939's The Boys From Syracuse (which was made into a film the following year). Florida Playwrights' Theatre doesn't attempt anything quite that ambitious. Instead, it delivers early Shakespeare on a low budget, and it's a scream.
The Two Gentlemen of Verona. Written by William Shakespeare; directed by Angela Thomas, with Paul Thomas, John Manzelli, Lissa Grossman, Julia C. Brown, Matthew Regan, Paul Waxman, Lori Dolan, Hardy Louihis, and Andre Todd Bruni. Through September 8.
The Comedy of Errors. Written by William Shakespeare; directed by Matthew Regan; with Jay Colligan, Paul Thomas, Paul Waxman, Julia C. Brown, Lissa Grossman, and Duncan Pflaster. Through September 7. For information call 954-925-8123 or see "Calendar Listings.
