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 among all my theatre productions was for Shakespeare’s The Two Gentlemen of Verona. This modern updating was the most fully realized concept, working across all scenes in the play, and 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: a genre identity crisis - a strange mix of comedy and drama; two unlikeable central male characters with misogynistic values and arrogance; an oddball character - Lance - who only serves for comic relief; a world with Italian named places like Verona and Milan, but doesn’t feel Italian; strangely named characters, a Duke, servants and outlaws. How to make sense of this? Who are these people? Where and when is this set?
SOLUTION: Transpose Verona to 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 - 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, assembling 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’ is solved by making them homeless people living below an inner city overpass.
‘The Two Gentlemen of Verona’ at Seattle Shakespeare Company (2010)
Director - Marcus Goodwin; Set Designer - Jason Phillips; Costume Designer - Doris Black
(Production photos - Erik Stuhaug)
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