Two Gentlemen of Verona
This play actually took my by surprise. After seeing R&J I was not expecting much from Shakespeare, I am somewhat familiar with his work but not well enough. This play was actually quite interesting, and pretty captivating. The time seemed to fly by; the actors were really good, my favorite, however, was Speed played by Johanna Pinzler. The scenery seemed to be totally handcrafted, and obviously a lot of work was put into it, but it just didn’t do its part, it was OK, but nothing special.
I was surprised to see that Valentine and Proteus were not as good as Speed. Valentine played by Jose Aranda was pretty good, he seemed to have a fair amount of enthusiasm for the show and somewhat seemed to like it, however his body language was a bit off, and seemed over-rehearsed. Proteus played by Michael Colby Jones, on the other hand, was not as good. He didn’t seem to care at all for the play, it just seemed like he wanted the night to end. Proteus, however, was not as bad as the Duke. Fernando Betancourt (Duke) seemed to speak in monotone. Whenever he would be up on stage I felt as though I was in a lecture, not a play. I even fell asleep once. I personally think he should go to a vocal coach. It was surpsing to see how big the actual stage was, the past play I’ve seen there was very cramped, however Two Gentlemen of Verona seemed to utilize all of us.
Overall I was very happy with the play. Ironically enough, I think this has been the best play I have seem the whole semester, even though it was Shakespeare and when I was driving to the theater I was expecting to be sleeping for the full two hours.