‘Verona’ rocks Shakespeare’s ‘Two Gents’

Robert Hurwitt, Chronicle Theater Critic

Sunday, July 3, 2011

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/06/30/PK781K0EUI.DTL#ixzz1RYTXpx00

This isn’t your parents’ “The Two Gentlemen of Verona.” It isn’t even Shakespeare’s, nor is it meant to be. “The Verona Project,” opening this week at California Shakespeare Theater, is not an adaptation, but a new work – written and composed by director Amanda Dehnert – “inspired by” Shakespeare’s comedy.

That’s right, composed. “Project,” in Dehnert’s conceit, is a kind of alternative rock concert by a young band performing its first concept album.

“Conceptually, I believe that the band made up the whole thing,” she explains after a long day’s rehearsal. “They created the songs and the story. Obviously, I’m projecting myself onto them but, like, those are the rules.”

What Dehnert’s band takes from Shakespeare includes most of the characters, some plot and, she says, some of the language – but probably not the play’s song “Who Is Silvia?” That’s because the person with whom one of Shakespeare’s titular gentlemen falls in love isn’t Silvia anymore. He’s Silvio.

National reputation

At 38, Dehnert has developed a national reputation for bold, new takes on classics, including quite a bit of Shakespeare. After a decade at Rhode Island’s Trinity Repertory – where she rose from student to associate artistic director, then acting artistic director – she now lives in Chicago, where she teaches at Northwestern University. Lookingglass Theatre premiered her “Peter Pan: A Play.” Her staging of “Julius Caesar” opened in March at Oregon Shakespeare Festival, with Bay Area actress Vilma Silva in the title role.

“Two Gents” cries out for some shaking up. One of Shakespeare’s earliest attempts at a comedy – “super-duper early,” Dehnert remarks – it’s famously problematic. Proteus, whom we’re supposed to like, is in love with Julia until he leaves Verona to join best friend Valentine in Milan – where he falls for Valentine’s beloved Silvia (er, Silvio), connives to get Valentine exiled and tries to rape Silvia.

The hardest part for modern audiences to accept is when Proteus gets caught by Valentine – and repents. At which Valentine forgives him and offers to let him have Silvia. It’s all about friendship, you see.

“They’re just kids,” Dehnert says. “What do any of us know at that age?”

Not that she’s using that to excuse everything. She’s jettisoned the rape, the bandits in the forest (don’t ask) and a bunch of characters – even the crowd-pleasing dog. It all started when Cal Shakes Artistic Director Jonathan Moscone saw her “All’s Well That Ends Well” at Ashland two years ago, and they began talking about her doing “Two Gents” here.

Entirely different story

“The play, in my opinion, needs more than just smart editing,” she says. “And our talks rolled out into it becoming this entirely different story.

“It’s an invented world,” she continues, with the band telling the story directly to the audience. “I’ve had people describe my approach as a kind of here-and-nowhere place. It’s a once-upon-a-time world, which has some resemblance to our own. Have you ever read Neil Gaiman? ‘Coraline’? That kind of world that’s like us but not quite. I really like enlisting the audience’s imagination, which is also a nice get-out-of-jail-free card for me. But I want to give people just enough so they can create a whole world in their heads.”

The altered gender of Silvio and sexual orientation of Valentine – and, for a while, Proteus – is just part of the world of the play.

“It’s not a focus,” she says. “This is about young people figuring out who they are and starting that journey. There’s a phase you go through where you define yourself based on who you’re with. Not just your romantic life. Also your friendships. Gender plays into that but the piece isn’t about sexual identity specifically. It’s just a world where it’s OK for the person you love to be whoever you want that person to be.”

That invented world is reflected in her score, which Dehnert – a music student who got involved in theater as an accompanist – says she can’t really describe. She allows that it’s influenced by what she “likes to listen to – everything from Aaron Copland to Stravinsky to Mozart, the Beatles, the Pixies – Hem is a band I love – Bernstein. It’s a big list.”

It’s also a big job. Dehnert has been rewriting script and songs as she develops “Project” in rehearsal with the cast. She’s delighted with the company, and with Moscone for taking the risk of producing new work.

Good for the soul

“Everybody is so game, so open, so willing. It’s good for the soul to remember that’s all we’re meant to do as theater artists. We try to tell a story that people can care about. Is it going to be perfect? No. Is theater supposed to be perfect? No. Is it supposed to be human and messy and wonderful and meant? Yes.

“That’s what Cal Shakes is supporting with this. More theaters should be this brave.” {sbox}

The Verona Project begins previews Wed., opens Sat. and runs through July 31. $35-$66. California Shakespeare Theater, 100 California Shakespeare Theater Way, Orinda. (510) 548-9666. www.calshakes.org.

E-mail Robert Hurwitt at rhurwitt@sfchronicle.com.

This article appeared on page P – 26 of the San Francisco Chronicle

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/06/30/PK781K0EUI.DTL#ixzz1RYTQ7tTA

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