Doug Scholz-Carlson is a highly thoughtful, creative artistic force who always has a prominent role in selecting the plays to be performed each season at the Great River Shakespeare Festival; his selections are always thematically relevant to contemporary issues.
Scholz-Carson’s
personal directorial turn this year was in Comedy of Errors, for which
he made the brilliant decision to insert a soliloquy from Sir Thomas More (a
play now widely thought by scholars to have been written by Shakespeare but
until recent years often left out of the 38-play canon of the Bard); the inserted speech within that play constitutes
a plea for acceptance and celebration of immigrants in 15th century
London.
One can
also see his creative vision at work in the selection of Romeo and Juliet,
emphasizing with great vigor that play’s abiding theme as to the personal and
societal misery caused by internecine conflict and violence.
With the
selection of Two Gentlemen of Verona, Doug and the other creative forces
at the festival have been able to comment in the context of the latest events
and issues of the Trump Tribulation on the willingness of certain personalities
to betray friendship, move impulsively from one romantic object to another, and
to construct and execute schemes for one’s own gratification at the expense others.
The
culpable being in Two Gentlemen is Proteus, who simultaneously betrays
fellow gentleman Valentine and Julia (his Verona-based betrothed) when,
sojourning in Milan (Valentine having arrived before him), he quickly distances
himself from thoughts of Julia and turns his lustful attention toward
Silvia, Valentine’s beloved and fellow prospective eloper.
Contriving
a plan to undermine his rivals, both Valentine and Thurio (to whom Silvia’s
father aims to marry her), Proteus finds himself in the end spurned by both
Julia (who, carrying forth the Shakespearean trope of traveling female dressed
as male, treks to Milan thinking that Proteus will be thrilled when she reveals
her identity) and Silvia. In a very
powerful final scene, the frustrated Proteus makes a violent move on Silvia,
inducing the returned Valentine to constrain his erstwhile friend and leave him
alone and dishonored at mid-stage at play’s end.
Much of
this resonates with foibles of the Trump Tribulation, generally and with regard
to the Jeffrey Epstein degradation.
Handling of the young lovers is different from other Shakespearean
plays, in which the Bard cloaks themes pertinent to fickleness, impulsiveness,
and infatuation in plot devices resulting in forgivable misunderstandings and,
consequently, reunited lovers. But in
this case, neither Valentine nor Julia is inclined to forgive Proteus; further, Silvia immediately and abidingly saw
through the protests of love from the disloyal and unfaithful Proteus,
establishing herself as quite a noble heroine.
She and Valentine, whose union is now blessed by Silvia’s father,
reunite more firmly and lovingly than ever.
But there is decidedly no reunion for Proteus and the virtuous and
dignified Julia. Proteus, spurned for
his disloyalty and unfaithfulness, is left all alone and bereft at the. WE are reminded that Shakespearean plays
classified as comedies nevertheless often issue very serious comments on human
nature.
The
production of Two Gentlemen of Verona was lively, witty, and well-paced,
with spare and playfully selected props that suggested rather than literally
presented the physical setting and items therein. The actors were very talented
students in the drama program at the University of Tennessee/Knoxville who
played their parts with great skill and radiant enthusiasm.
While Comedy
of Errors and Romeo and Juliet were staged in the usual Great River
Shakespeare Festival venue, the performing arts center of Winona Stage
University, Two Gentlemen of Verona was performed at the enormously scenic
venue of the National Eagle Center amphitheater.
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