The Two Gentlemen of Verona presented by Shakespeare Theatre Company at Michael R. Klein Theatre

The Two Gentlemen of Verona

Michael R. Klein Theatre
450 7th Street NW Washington

The play, perhaps Shakespeare's earliest, focuses on Valentine and Proteus, lifelong friends who are unexpectedly thrust into the rivalries and complications of adolescence. When both fall in love with the Duke of Milan's daughter, Silvia, the cunning Proteus betrays his friend. Will the banished Valentine find his home in the woods, amongst the outlaws? And what of Julia, Proteus' first love, who comes to court disguised as a boy? What happens when a group of youths is left without parents to guide them through life's journey?

Presented by Shakespeare Theatre Company

Thru - Mar 4, 2012

Price: $37-$90

Show Type: Comedy

Running Time: 2 hrs, 20 minutes with 1 intermission

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The Two Gentlemen of Verona Reviews

Average Rating based on 8 reviews

Highly Recommended
Recommended
Somewhat Recommended
Not Recommended

Washington Post - Recommended

"...It’s well-acted, too, which comes as a relief. (The show is so action-packed you worry sometimes about its ability to calm down and talk.) Especially winning are the clowns, played by the admirably relaxed Adam Green and Euan Morton. Green is droll and drily amused as Speed, Valentine’s servant-with-a-skateboard, and Morton beams as Launce, the loopy fool who mopes over the seeming indifference of his dog Crab (tranquilly played by a shaggy, cock-eared pooch named Oliver)."

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- Nelson Pressley

Talkin Broadway - Highly Recommended

"...The director's ingenious blending of Renaissance and modern elements calls to mind another genre-blending work: the musical Spring Awakening, with its 1890s adolescents baring their souls in rock songs."

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- Susan Berlin

Washington City Paper - Somewhat Recommended

"... All this desperate embroidery—OMG, I forgot to tell you that some characters totally communicate by text message in a Shakespeare play, LOL!—mostly feels about as hip and necessary as your Dockers-wearing dad reciting Odd Future lyrics. The cast, for what it’s worth, does a good job across the board of making its characters’ decisions seem, you know, not utterly insane, especially Miriam Silverman as that poor doormat Julia. Nick Dillenburg, as the moral changeling Proteus, comes off as much more likable and dimensional than Andrew Veenstra’s Fabio-haired Valentine. In a show this daft, that the most inconstant character becomes the most rewarding constant is, to quote a third U2 song, “a dangerous idea that almost makes sense.”"

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- Chris Klimek

Washingtonian - Recommended

"... Director PJ Paparelli’s production plunges into the privileged teenage psyche well before any actors step onto the stage. Heineken, Trojan, and Apple logos plastered across a forest of dented aluminum set pieces bring to mind the trash can overflowing with crumpled beer cans after a house party. So introducing the play’s characters ripping late-night shots of Jack Daniels in an empty parking lot seems about right. With Ben Folds’s piano blasting and set designer Walt Spangler’s nifty electronic message board tweeting snarky exposition overhead, we meet Valentine and his best friend, Proteus. The young men have reached that bittersweet point of impending adulthood, and Proteus ( Nick Dillenburg), in the grips of young love, has opted to stay in Verona with sweetheart Julia ( Miriam Silverman), while cynical Valentine ( Andrew Veenstra) is bidding his buddy farewell in favor of big-city living in Milan."

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- Gwendolyn Purdom

ShowBizRadio - Recommended

"... The physical production is excellent, beginning with a shiny metallic multi-level set that is used to effectively throughout, never better than in first of two well-conceived and executed fight choreography sequences. The second of these sequences is notable for its close coordination of punches with stage blood –when a fist lands, a bloody nose or mouth follows instantaneously."

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- Bob Ashby

MD Theatre Guide - Highly Recommended

"...Verona. An open street. Afternoon. Or that’s what Shakespeare wrote. It was really more like Suburbia. Parking Lot. 11pm Friday night. Yeah. That’s exactly the encounter this Shakespearean comedy opens to in the Shakespeare Theatre Company’s production of Two Gentlemen of Verona. Director PJ Paparelli presents a fusion of Elizabethan culture and modern society that blends together this comedy of excess and young love in a way that will speak to audiences, especially teenagers, on a level that communicates how the trials and tribulations of Shakespeare’s characters are not so different from our own."

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- Amanda Gunther

DCTheatreScene - Highly Recommended

The Shakespeare Theatre Company’s hormone-drunk Two Gentlemen of Verona is a story of mad children at play in the house of their own hearts, adrift and rudderless in a storm of their passions, laughing and drinking and singing and skating closer to death than they can possibly understand.

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- Tim Treanor

BroadwayWorld - Highly Recommended

"... Mix in a set (by the incredibly talented Walt Spangler) that is a cross between Rent and the original Sweeney Todd, clever lighting by Howell Binkley, cute costumes by Paul Spadone, new music composed by Fabian Obispo with lyrics by the superb director PJ Paparelli with vocal arrangements by Jon Kabfleisch, with clever and funny sur-titles used to introduce scenes co-written by Director Paparelli with Assistant Director Gus Heagerty (both responsible for the choice of the rock music)."

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- Charles Shubow

The Two Gentlemen of Verona presented by Shakespeare Theatre Company at Michael R. Klein Theatre