Working as a theatre director is the best lesson in collaboration and teamwork, but it’s also been a thrilling medium to explore what makes a great concept.
My favorite concept of all my theatre productions was for Shakespeare’s The Two Gentlemen of Verona because it was the most detailed, fully realized concept, and one that worked across all scenes in the play. Above all, it was the result of trying to make this oddball, rarely performed 400 year old play, entertaining, meaningful and relatable to a modern audience.
PROBLEM: The play is rife with them: it has a genre identity crisis with a strange mix of comedy and drama; the two central male characters are difficult to like with their misogynistic values and arrogance; there’s a comic character - Lance - that doesn’t seem to have a purpose in the play other than comic relief; the world has Italian named places like Verona and Milan, but it doesn’t feel Italian; there is a Duke, strangely named characters, servants and outlaws. How to make sense of this? Who are these people? Where and when is this set?
SOLUTION: A world where all these contradictions and oddities made sense was to transpose Verona to the modern day world of a fictional wealthy oceanside ‘Verona, California’ with shades of The O.C, Keeping Up with the Kardashians and Beverly Hills 90210. In this world of wealth and privilege, the two self-involved, male leads with their casual misogyny fit in perfectly. They party, they text, they snap pictures. The ‘servants’ in the play are turned fittingly into PAs. The other location in the play - Milan - becomes the exclusive East Coast community of ‘Milan, Massachussets’ where family name and education is everything. ‘The Duke’ becomes the last name of the character, a Donald Trump-like figure, running a business out of a skyscraper and with a University named after him. Best of all, Shakespeare’s odd comic relief clown ‘Lance’ becomes a beach bum, surfer dude - think Spicoli from ‘Fast Times at Ridgemont High’.
Each scene was given its own original setting appropriate to this world. Here are some examples:
Projection design on a large screen at the back of the set established the setting for each scene. (The whole image assembled segment by segment in random patterns.)
Each projection also had the setting written in screenplay format at the top of each projection
The concept meant that this scene originally in one location was transformed into a much more impactful scene played as a phone conversation in two different locations.
The problem of the random comic relief character called Lance was solved by making him a surfer dude who hangs out on the beach and the yacht club and deals pot on the side.
The problem of ‘The Duke’ is solved by making him a Donald Trump like figure with the last name of ‘Duke’, who owns a multinational corporation and has a University named after him.
The problem of ‘The outlaws’ in the original play is solved by making them homeless people living below an inner city overpass.
‘The Two Gentlemen of Verona’ at Seattle Shakespeare Company (2009)
Director - Marcus Goodwin; Set Designer - Jason Phillips; Costume Designer - Doris Black