theatre review THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA - Southwest Shakespeare Theatre Company, Oct. 13

Ian Christiansen, Bre Jarvis and Marshall Glass

Here is a link to my review at Talkin' Broadway of The Two Gentlemen of Verona at the Southwest Shakespeare Theatre.  It was an interesting production, with some nice additional musical moments, but overall Shakespeare's first play isn't that interesting.

"William Shakespeare's earliest play, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, doesn't quite have the same lyrical language and in-depth character analysis that his better regarded plays do. While there are plenty of plot developments and foreshadowing of what Shakespeare would create with his later works, at its core, Verona is a simple play, with simple characters and language. The Southwest Shakespeare Company production has updated the story to the Roaring '20s of Chicago and added in a nice amount of music and even a little dancing, including a fun "Charleston", but in end very little can be done to make it more than simply Shakespeare's first comedy which also happens to be one of his less accomplished ones."

Southwest Shakespeare Company's official site

photo: Mark Gluckman