You see some Shakespeares so often that you almost never want to see them again. Macbeth is like that for me. I’ve watched it so many times that I feel I know every line. I’ve had to declare a temporary moratorium on watching it. In the UK, we have quite a problematic relationship with Shakespeare: we’re taught him at school, and a lot of people have bad experiences. You come to the text with baggage.
But when I was asked to direct The Two Gentlemen of Verona for the RSC in 2004, I came to it almost as it was a piece of new writing; it’s so rarely performed or taught. I think I’d read it at university, but I can’t really remember. It’s almost certainly Shakespeare’s first surviving play, and the script has this wonderful freshness about it. He probably wrote Two Gents when he was in his 20s, but to me it feels almost like a teenage piece: it’s so bouncy and buoyant, an action-packed adventure story about two friends, Valentine and Proteus, who are driven apart then come back together. The plot doesn’t always tie up, and you can sense Shakespeare getting bored at points – “quick, let’s bring on some outlaws!”. And it has this naive bravery to it, a fearlessness I find really attractive.
Ours was a touring production that went around the UK, so we had to be careful about the resources we used. Part of the set was shared with a version of Julius Caesar that my colleague David Farr was directing. We came up with a 1930s concept – Milan as a glamorous metropolis, with lots of jazz and swing dancing, and Verona as a crumbling, rather stuffy English mansion. We did that partly because I love old black-and-white films, but also because it helped the audience suspend their cynicism. I took all kinds of liberties with the text – not rewriting it, but moving some scenes to help the flow, and adding dance sequences. The contrast between the two cities seemed to help communicate the story, which is that Valentine leaves for Milan, Proteus follows him (leaving behind his girlfriend, Julia), and then they both fall for the same woman, Silvia. Proteus comes to the big city and completely loses his head. He betrays his friend, as well as Julia and himself.
Famously, Two Gents is the one play that has a role for a dog, Crab, who’s owned by a clown-like figure called Launce. One of the hardest things in any Shakespeare is making sure the comedy is actually funny. Sometimes the jokes don’t survive the 400-year time-lag. Andrew Melville did Launce with a great deal of dourness, like something out of Waiting for Godot, a real vaudevillian. And our Crab, Ria, was brilliantly patient. She just stood there, deadpan. It was beautiful. Perhaps it sounds strange, but it’s rather amazing having an animal on stage: they bring a completely different reality to the show. You’ve created this whole world around them, the world of the play, and they’re just doing their thing.
There are dark forces in Two Gents. One of the trickiest moments is the scene near the end, where Proteus comes close to raping Silvia. Valentine quickly forgives him, and Julia does the same. It’s tough to portray that, particularly from Julia’s perspective. It would be possible to do it as a problem play, like Measure for Measure or All’s Well That Ends Well – the so-called happy ending actually being extremely unhappy. But it wasn’t the option we went for. I felt we had to be able to agree that friendship triumphs, and love triumphs. The 1930s setting was also key to that: the sense of sudden romance, unexpected catastrophe, rushed resolutions. It’s like a Clark Gable movie, in some ways; we go along with it.
That’s when the play is at its most profound, I think. We expect everything to be tragic, but when Shakespeare pushes the resolution in a different direction it’s utterly amazing. Much Ado About Nothing also has that dynamic that: happiness seized from a situation that seems impossibly bleak. Joy is one of the most profound emotions there is – and sometimes it’s the hardest thing to find.
