Photo of Julia and Proteus from the St. Louis Shakespeare Festival production of The Two Gentlemen of Verona by Phillip Hamer Photography.
The Two Gentlemen of Verona, presented by the St. Louis Shakespeare Festival, began its countywide tour on August 4. This is the festival’s third big event of the summer season, which started with the main stage show in Forest Park’s Shakespeare Glen. This year, they chose The Tempest, delivering a breezy, refreshing, abbreviated version of the play that clocked in at under two hours and was performed without an intermission. The creative team took a similarly streamlined approach to Two Gentlemen, which is known today as one of Shakespeare’s very first comedies. It served as a sort of dry run for plot devices and character types that he would use to better effect in later plays—featuring a woman who pretends to be a man, mistaken identity, romantic double-crossing, false rumors, and, of course, an ending with at least two marriages. Shakespeare’s later comedies, like A Midsummer Night’s Dream or Much Ado About Nothing, are more refined and much more popular; however, the relative obscurity of Two Gentlemen makes it prime for reinterpretation. Most audiences won’t have a strong opinion about how the play should be staged or how the characters should look or act, so the players can make this story their own—and they do!
Film buffs might know that Two Gentlemen is the centerpiece of the ’90s film Shakespeare in Love. On top of that, it features one of the best Shakespearean parts with no dialogue: Crab the dog. Legend has it that at one of the original performances of Two Gentlemen in late-1500s England, the dog ran straight into the Queen’s lap. The dog should ideally be a little mischievous in a lovable sort of way, but if anything, the American Shepherd, Camille, was almost too sweet and adorable. If the servant Launce isn’t happy with his dog, I’d be happy to take her off his hands. The traveling show will use other dogs for the role; audiences at later shows can look forward to appearances from the shepherd-corgi mix, Dill, and the golden retriever, Rocky.
Now, on to the humans. The St. Louis Shakespeare Festival has managed to bring together another diverse and appealing group of local actors, some of whom may be familiar faces to the audience. Bryce A. Miller (Speed/Thurio) is a frequent player at New Jewish Theatre (their creative director, Rebekah Scallet, also directed this touring production). He is joined by Otto Klemp (Valentine) and Jason Heil (Launce/Duke of Milan), who also performed in NJT’s 2025 production of Cabaret, as well as Sarah Wilkinson (Julia/Outlaw), who co-starred with Miller in the STAGES St. Louis production of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. Rounding out the cast is the lovely Jada Simone Francis (Silvia/Lucetta) and the dashing Tristan Wallach (Proteus). Together, they make for a youthful, lively ensemble. It’s clear the actors are having fun as they play multiple characters and don different disguises over the course of a sweet and slightly unhinged hour and a half.
If you’ve seen any of the other big Shakespeare comedies, you have an idea of what to expect. A man and a woman—sometimes two men and two women—are drawn together and repelled by each other, like magnets with ever-switching poles. They couldn’t possibly get together, until they do. The main driver of the conflict here is the rivalry between Valentine and Proteus. As their names suggest, one is always pining and lovesick, while the other is shifty and chameleon-like. Valentine, who hopes to someday become a proper gentleman and earn the love of a true lady, decides to leave Verona for the big city of Milan, accompanied by his servant, Speed. He is disappointed that his friend Proteus opts to stay, unwilling to leave his girlfriend, Julia, behind. However, Proteus’s father orders his slacker son to leave for Milan with his servant, Launce, the very next day. The two men reach Milan, but before they can rendezvous, they both encounter the beautiful Silvia, daughter of the Duke, and fall madly in love. What follows is a wild romantic feud that eventually draws in forest-dwelling bandits and heads of state. But never fear—this Verona love story is a comedy, so there are no stabs in the heart. The two friends eventually reconcile and find happiness with their beloved. Improbably, Julia takes Proteus back, even after she watches him sing sappy ballads to Silvia and regift her promise ring. The Shakespeare Festival had the good sense to gloss over the most head-scratching scene of Two Gentlemen, in which Valentine literally offers Silvia to his friend to end the conflict. Bros before shrews, I suppose… at least she got better treatment than Ophelia.
The festival takes a different design approach to the touring shows. You won’t see the big, elaborate sets of Shakespeare Glen—those are costly and impractical for a traveling show with an ambitious schedule. Instead of the palatial shipwreck that audiences beheld in The Tempest, this production mainly uses small, wheeling wooden archways and an Italian villa backdrop to represent Verona—a place that Shakespeare would revisit and make far more famous. Speed is the name of a servant, but it’s also the name of the game for this production, which puts a premium on brisk pacing and comic timing. Launce and his canine companion get some of the biggest laugh lines; he is the prototypical Shakespearean jester, using bawdy humor as a jumping-off point for winding philosophical lectures. Miller also provides over-the-top entertainment as the buffoonish Thurio, alternating between brassy renditions of Bacharach and ugly crying in a crumpled heap. The leading ladies give some grace and gravitas to the zany affair, and each actor has an opportunity to join the band, either singing or playing an instrument. Music is an important component of any Shakespeare Festival production, especially for comedies, and this traveling show delivers with some lovely acoustic folk music, as well as a little trumpet and accordion. Many of the songs have a folk dance feel; the lyrics are either inspired by or lifted directly from the script. Ms. Wilkinson’s numbers are especially captivating, but that’s no surprise after her dominant performance as the chronic overachiever Marcy Park.
Audiences can choose from over a dozen locations throughout St. Louis County between now and September 9 (visit https://stlshakes.org/production/two-gentlemen-of-verona/ for the full schedule). We attended the August 6 show, which took place in Heman Park in University City. The ground was muddy after a morning thunderstorm, but the air was pleasantly cool and too damp for the flying bugs to come out in full force. It was a great choice of venue, conveniently located only ten minutes from my house and ten minutes from Clementine’s Naughty and Nice Creamery, one of my favorite places for an after-show snack. It made for an enjoyable evening of mostly free, high-quality family entertainment. | Rob Von Nordheim
