Welcome!

In this blog I’ll deal with a few aspects of 2 Gents that we likely won’t get to in rehearsals. I created a similar blog for Hamlet a few years ago. It was mostly for my own amusement and to organize some of the “mental filing cabinets” I keep on that play. However, it was considered very useful by the senior students/alumni who knew about it, so I thought it might be worthwhile to do something similar for The Two Gentlemen of Verona.

2 Gents is an early Shakespeare play – maybe the earliest, in fact – and is considered by some critics to be severely flawed (more about that later). Nevertheless, it’s a fascinating play to study/perform because it has so many “firsts”:

• first cross-dressing heroine!
• first love-gift central to the plot!
• first hero kidnapped by pirates! Oops, sorry – make that outlaws.

Lots of devices and images that Shakespeare develops and perfects later in his writing career make their first appearance in 2 Gents.

2 Gents has never been Shakespeare’s most popular play, but it’s a great play for young actors. The title characters are just on the cusp of their grown-up lives, leaving home and trying to find their own way in the adult world for the first time.

Like all young people, they make serious mistakes – and suffer for them! But – with considerable help from their girlfriends and servants (who, as always in Shakespeare, are much more astute and competent that our heroes) – all turns out for the best. The language is clever and funny – and who can resist a dog onstage!

This will be Playmakers! 5^th outing with The Two Gentlemen of Verona. The first production was mounted in 1998 and featured (then 15-year-old, now alumni) Chris Huggins and Brendan McKenna in the title roles. Jennifer Zylstra played Silvia when she was just in Grade 8 – which is impossible to believe, looking at the tape now… That production was staged at – and included actors from – Nancy Campbell Collegiate Institute. It travelled to the London International Children’s Festival later that spring.

Subsequent productions were staged at Falstaff Family Centre in 2002 and at City Hall in 2004 and 2008. Seven of the actors in the current cast took part in the 2008 production in much smaller roles than they’ll have this time.

For sixteen of our cast members, this version of 2 Gents will be their introduction to the play – and for seven of them, this will be their introduction to Shakespeare, Playmakers! style. I hope they enjoy it! I know that, like the characters in the story, they’ll learn a lot.