PREVIEW
Two Gentlemen of Verona and The Winter’s Tale
Freewill Shakespeare Festival
June 18 to July 14
Hawrelak Park Amphitheatre, Edmonton
Tickets: Adult $35, senior/student $25, children under 10 free but must have a ticket. Visit freewillshakespeare.com or onsite box office
In a beautiful natural vista with lots of drama, comedy and pageantry, the Freewill Shakespeare Festival is about to unfold at the Hawrelak Park Amphitheatre.
This year, the open-air festival, running June 18 to July 14, celebrates two of the Bard’s plays performed with varying degrees of success throughout the centuries.
Two Gentlemen of Verona is a comedy and considered one of Shakespeare’s early plays, while The Winter’s Tale, once dubbed a comedy, has in modern times been relabelled one of Shakespeare’s late romances.
Kicking off the festival is Two Gentlemen of Verona, which the festival website describes as “a bromance for the ages.” It follows the love life of two devoted friends, Valentine and Proteus.
The childhood friends are like two peas in a pod until they fall in love with the same woman. Things get thorny as betrayal, cross-dressings, a physical assault and secrets are revealed throughout the comedy.
“I try to keep it light,” said director Kevin Sutley, a longtime company actor.
One of the pillars of Two Gentlemen of Verona follows a 16th-century belief that the platonic love between two men forged a stronger relationship than a romantic relationship with a woman.
“The idea of romantic love was not a common part of the process until the 1400s. We take it for granted, but it never used to be the situation. Shakespeare was borrowing the idea (that) Greek platonic love between two men was considered the strongest form of love. The male-to-male bond was between equals, whereas the romantic bond with a woman was considered more frivolous,” Sutley said.
One of the highlights is Launce, a scene-stealing servant with his dog Crab. This year, Belinda Cornish is tapped for the mannish role and her Shih Tzu cross Alice tags along.
“She’s (Alice) very cute and wide-eyed with a stubborn look. She’s smart and she gets where she’s meant to go.”
While Two Gentlemen of Verona has an earthy vibe, The Winter’s Tale is named after the Elizabethan expression for an unbelievable, fanciful tale akin to an old wives tale.
“It’s an eccentric play,” said director Dave Horak. “It’s a later play of Shakespeare. You see a more mature playwright and he has the confidence to experiment. I do love the play. It’s so strange, so weird with so many problems to work out.”
In essence, a jealous king believes his pregnant wife is unfaithful despite all the evidence to the contrary. The king imprisons his wife and she dies.
After his daughter's birth, he commands the baby be left in a barren land. Happily an old shepherd rescues her and names her Perdita.
The play jumps 16 years later where a confluence of events forces all the characters to meet and reckon with their choices.
“Because it’s so strange, I’m leaning towards weirdness and I’m highlighting the odd. I’m taking this tall tale quite literally to make it a fantastical mystery story. It’s set in a world of magic where anything can happen,” Horak said.
While Two Gentlemen is set in the 1990s echoing a touch of grunge, The Winter’s Tale initially feels like The Great Gatsby era before the stock market crash.
“When it jumps 16 years later, it feels like the American south of the 1940s. It’s not historical, but there’s a magical quality to it.”
“It’s about forgiveness and reconciliation, but it’s also a question of how do you forgive someone who has done something horrendous.”
