ROBERT LIVINGSTON returned to Forres for a second dose of the Bard, as the Royal Shakespeare Company on Tour turned from Roman Tragedy to the romantic comedy of Two Gentlemen of Verona.

YOU ARE INVITED to the smartest party in town.  At the Duke’s of course.  Cocktails will be served.  Shakespeare is putting on the ritz—top hat, white tie and tails.  In such fashionable society, is it any wonder if two young lads from provincial Verona find their heads turned by romance?

The RSC on Tour’s updating of Julius Caesar to the present day was shockingly relevant.  But Two Gentlemen of Verona slides effortlessly into a fantasy 1930s of black and white musicals, Eileen Gray furniture, the black bottom and the hoochie-coo.

Critics seem to agree that this is one of Shakespeare’s earliest plays, perhaps even his first, and it shows in its abstract qualities.  ‘Verona’, ‘Milan’, and ‘Mantua’ are just handy concepts, not real places.  After all, Shakespeare has his characters travel from Verona to Milan by sea and seems not to know, or care, that there is no tide in the Mediterranean!

If it therefore does no violence to the play to set it in the Jazz Age, it’s also not clear that there are real insights to be gained either.  It’s more as if Director Fiona Buffini felt the need to add a gloss of glamour to all that intricate wordplay:  On the Town-style New York street scenes (complete with sailor on leave, yet!); marvellously evocative music by Conor Linehan, and showy and exuberant dance routines by the whole company. And then, of course, there are the costumes…

For it’s not just the settings of Two Gentlemen that are rather abstract.  The frenetic dialogue is highly artificial: full of conceits, puns, elaborate word games, and  contrived poetry.  The more mature Shakespeare would find a way of rooting such verbal fireworks in distinctive individual characters, but here everybody—servants and masters, men and women, mechanicals and courtiers—are equally fluent and witty, all desperate to keep the verbal ball in the air.

And it’s here that the RSC’s core qualities come to the fore.  As in Julius Caesar, the absolue clarity and lucidity of the verse-speaking not only leave no room for misunderstanding, they actually make all this 400-year-old drollery funny!

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“It has been a great privilege to see the work of this company at close quarters”

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There’s a not entirely frivolous theory that Shakespeare’s clowns were not even considered funny in his own time, let alone today.  Andrew Melville’s wonderfully lugubrious Scottish Launce gives the lie to that particular calumny.  His performance is a masterclass in how underplaying, eye contact with the audience, and significant pauses can make the fustiest jokes sound new-minted—even if Ria, as his dog Crabb, nearly steals every scene.

Part of the pleasure of indulging in both these productions in Forres is to see the same company in an entirely different light.  Brutus and Cassius, so forceful and commanding as Romans, are here delivering wonderfully sharp cameos as thwarted suitor and manipulative butler, while former servants and spear-carriers are elevated to lead roles.

But this does have one drawback.  The Two Gentlemen of the title may be callow young men, but it’s perhaps not a good idea to therefore have them played by equally callow young actors.  There are many fascinating pre-echoes in this play of masterpieces to come – Midsummer Night’s Dream, Twelfth Night, Much Ado about Nothing – and no more so than in those moments when the terror and agony of first love break through the brittle façade of comedy.

Alex Avery and Laurence Mitchell, as Valentine and Proteus, just don’t have the range and skill to be convincing in these crucial moments, nor can they paper over the cracks in the immature Shakespeare’s depictions of abrupt changes of heart.  Rachel Pickup and Vanessa Ackerman, as the objects of their affection, seem to inhabit another world of depth and emotion.

Like many of Shakespeare’s later plays, Two Gentlemen of Verona ends with a grand finale of disguises revealed, wickedness repented, wrongs forgiven and love reaffirmed.  But in this first effort the plot mechanics are creaky and unconvincing, and the reconciliations and reunions fail to achieve the moving transcendence of the masterpieces to come.  It’s to the credit of this production, then, that this final scene is made just about as persuasive as it could be, almost sweeping away earlier reservations.

It has been a great privilege to see the work of this company at close quarters, and the Moray Council arts team are to be congratulated not only on bringing the RSC back to Forres, but on delivering this immense project with ease and efficency.

© Robert Livingston, 2005