The musical first opened in July 1971 and ran for several months, at the outdoor Delacorte Theatre in Central Park, in Brooklyn, Staten Island, Greenwich Village, Bayside, and elsewhere, usually on a flatbed truck, like many of the New York Shakespeare Festival’s traveling shows. They played to 3,000 people a night – all for free – through early September. Producer Sol Hurok thought it was so brilliant he wanted to take it on a round-the-world tour. And then arts patron LuEsther Mertz gave Papp a blank check to produce the musical on Broadway. On December 1, the show opened on Broadway at the St. James Theatre and ran until May 1973, racking up 634 performances.
To further an understanding of the show I have compiled information about:
-The original Shakespeare text,
-The environment of 1971 New York that the musical was born in
-The creators of the musical
-How and why the show was shaped the way it was, both book and score.
To further an understanding of the show I have compiled information about:
-The original Shakespeare text,
-The environment of 1971 New York that the musical was born in
-The creators of the musical
-How and why the show was shaped the way it was, both book and score.
It all goes back to Shakespeare...
Shakespeare may have been writing about himself to some extent with the original Two Gents. Shakespeare himself had only recently arrived in the Big City (London), coming from a small town (Stratford), a young man in his twenties ready to take on the world, just like Valentine (which may explain why Valentine is the least ridiculous character in the story). Just like his Two Gents characters, young Shakespeare reinvented himself in London, living as a single man even though he had a wife and family back in Stratford (not that it wasn't uncommon to do so back then.) Sound familiar?
Two Gentlemen of Verona was Shakespeare’s first play, and though he’s not at the top of his game here, he’s still Shakespeare, and that’s enough. It's youthful, raw, rowdy, messy, rude, flawed but perhaps only a play so full of inconsistencies - for instance, why is the Duke of Milan sometimes referred to as the Emperor of Milan? - could lend itself to such bold tinkering.
Two Gentlemen of Verona was Shakespeare’s first play, and though he’s not at the top of his game here, he’s still Shakespeare, and that’s enough. It's youthful, raw, rowdy, messy, rude, flawed but perhaps only a play so full of inconsistencies - for instance, why is the Duke of Milan sometimes referred to as the Emperor of Milan? - could lend itself to such bold tinkering.
Papp, Guare, MacDermot, Shapiro and the Free Shakespeare Project
The Original Cast of Two Gentlemen (Joe Papp far left)
As the collaborators largely discarded the play’s original themes of friendship versus courtly love, other themes emerged. In contrast to the play, the musical is more about growing up. By the late 60s/early 70s, American youth were lost, American teens and young adults found themselves without a road map, without any discernible guidelines for growing up and making their way in the world.
As the collaborators largely discarded the play’s original themes of friendship versus courtly love, other themes emerged. In contrast to the play, the musical is more about growing up. By the late 60s/early 70s, American youth were lost, American teens and young adults found themselves without a road map, without any discernible guidelines for growing up and making their way in the world.
1971
Top songs of 1971:
Joy to the World -Three Dog Night
Maggie May/ Reason to Believe- Rod Stewart
It’s Too Late/ I feel the Earth Move -Carole King
Popular Films:
Love Story
Summer of '42
The Aristocats
The French Connection
Coke Commercial from 1971: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2msbfN81Gm0
A look into 1970’s fashion: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cy4iFhOGnzs
In 1971, Americans became increasingly concerned with the effects of over-development, pollution and urban decay. Many of those social issues also including welfare, the environment, pot smoking, race are touched on in Two Gents.
Want to Read More?
A cool article about 1969, ex: a ticket to hair on Broadway? $12. I think they were on to something personally.
http://www.amny.com/urbanite-1.812039/flashback-summer-of-1969-in-nyc-1.1369922
Joy to the World -Three Dog Night
Maggie May/ Reason to Believe- Rod Stewart
It’s Too Late/ I feel the Earth Move -Carole King
Popular Films:
Love Story
Summer of '42
The Aristocats
The French Connection
Coke Commercial from 1971: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2msbfN81Gm0
A look into 1970’s fashion: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cy4iFhOGnzs
In 1971, Americans became increasingly concerned with the effects of over-development, pollution and urban decay. Many of those social issues also including welfare, the environment, pot smoking, race are touched on in Two Gents.
Want to Read More?
A cool article about 1969, ex: a ticket to hair on Broadway? $12. I think they were on to something personally.
http://www.amny.com/urbanite-1.812039/flashback-summer-of-1969-in-nyc-1.1369922
With the sexual revolution of the late 1960's came a new symbol of women's sexual freedom, hot pants and mini skirts. This along with a host of other fashion trends like bell bottoms and platform shoes marked the early 70's. Inspired by some traditional designs from India, Nepal, Central America, Bali and Morocco, these trends were most importantly made popular if they were anything that wasn't based on the drab, conservative styles of the early '60s.
"Two Gentlemen" was born of the social and political turbulence of America in the late 1960's, including racial friction and divisions over the war in Vietnam.
feminism
The "second wave" of feminism spread across the United States during the 1960s and 1970s. By 1971, growing awareness of women's liberation was everywhere in the media and a part of many women's lives.
Julia exercises her sexual freedom by sleeping with Proteus and her pregnancy, not found in the original play, raised new national issues of women having babies out of wedlock and abortion, which we’ll returns at the end of the show again in "Don’t Have the Baby." In the song Julia is being given advice about whether or not to keep her baby by three men (Launce, Speed, and Lucetta’s drag persona "Cesario"), which was the feminists’ central complaint about the politics surrounding the issue. In "Love Me," Silvia is speaking for the women’s movement in America, demanding to be seen for the real, flesh-and-blood woman she is. She too is exercising her sexual freedom in her insistence on choosing her own man, rebelling against social pressures and family pressures, rejecting her father’s idea of an arranged marriage. This is not the Silvia in Shakespeare’s play and even more than the other characters, she lives fully in 1971.
Julia exercises her sexual freedom by sleeping with Proteus and her pregnancy, not found in the original play, raised new national issues of women having babies out of wedlock and abortion, which we’ll returns at the end of the show again in "Don’t Have the Baby." In the song Julia is being given advice about whether or not to keep her baby by three men (Launce, Speed, and Lucetta’s drag persona "Cesario"), which was the feminists’ central complaint about the politics surrounding the issue. In "Love Me," Silvia is speaking for the women’s movement in America, demanding to be seen for the real, flesh-and-blood woman she is. She too is exercising her sexual freedom in her insistence on choosing her own man, rebelling against social pressures and family pressures, rejecting her father’s idea of an arranged marriage. This is not the Silvia in Shakespeare’s play and even more than the other characters, she lives fully in 1971.
VIETNAM
April 24. Peaceful Vietnam War Out Now rally on the Mall, Washington, D.C
Protests against the Vietnam War took place in the 1960s and 1970s. They were part of a movement in opposition to the Vietnam War, as the United States had been involved in the conflict since 1950 and did not pull out till 1975.
"Draft Beer, not boys", "Hell no, we won't go", "Make love, not war" and "Eighteen today, dead tomorrow" were a few of the anti war slogans. The group that mostly used the anti-war slogans were called "doves"; those that supported the war were known as "hawks."
"Draft Beer, not boys", "Hell no, we won't go", "Make love, not war" and "Eighteen today, dead tomorrow" were a few of the anti war slogans. The group that mostly used the anti-war slogans were called "doves"; those that supported the war were known as "hawks."
The issue most fully woven into the plot is America’s involvement in Vietnam and the racial politics behind who went and who stayed behind. Because rich, white boys could get draft deferments if they went to college, Vietnam troops were disproportionately people of color, who couldn’t afford to go to college. In an exaggeration of the real situation, the Duke has the power to send anyone he doesn’t like off to Vietnam.
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Stonewall riots
The Stonewall riots were a series of spontaneous, violent demonstrations by members of the gay community against a police raid that took place in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, at the Stonewall Inn, in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City. They are widely considered to constitute the single most important event leading to the gay liberation movement and the modern fight for gay and lesbian rights in the United States.
Race riots and unrest
National Guardsmen wielding rifles with bayonets advanced along Springfield Avenue in Newark on July 14, 1967. Twenty-three people were killed and 700 injured in rioting. Since the mid-1960s, the nature of race riots in the U.S. significantly shifted. Violent black/white clashes continued into the mid-1970s, but the term's use shifted during the 1960s to refer to the uprisings of poorer blacks (or Latinos) protesting ghetto conditions, especially police brutality.
"Look around the city and say who lives here and get them upon this stage."
The Authors intention of creating Two Gentlemen was to capture the essence of American Life. They explain the important of multi-cultural casting, the actual appearance of the actors, the sound of their voices, and the assumption that the native sounds in their speech would not be overridden by an English Accent.
"We wanted this English play set in Renaissance Italy adapted from a Spanish source to stand as a metaphor for life in New York City in the 1970's."
-Shapiro
The Authors intention of creating Two Gentlemen was to capture the essence of American Life. They explain the important of multi-cultural casting, the actual appearance of the actors, the sound of their voices, and the assumption that the native sounds in their speech would not be overridden by an English Accent.
"We wanted this English play set in Renaissance Italy adapted from a Spanish source to stand as a metaphor for life in New York City in the 1970's."
-Shapiro
New york city 1971
1971 Times Square
A compilation of videos and pictures taken in the 1970's New York City
(keep in mind that these photos are from throughout the 70’s, not just 1971)
(keep in mind that these photos are from throughout the 70’s, not just 1971)
The idea of the Big City itself, the megalopolis that forces the kaleidoscope of races and colors and cultures to come in constant friction with one another, to deal with each other, betray each other, love each other, hate each other, in the deepest sense, live with each other and ultimately, hopefully, celebrate each other.
"The Land of Betrayal" is actually a portrait of New York in 1971, a glimpse inside the very dark vibe of the big city at that moment in history. The original production’s audience would have picked this up more easily, and they’d recognize immediately the references to pollution and other urban problems, along with the standard defense that, though New York was dangerous and dirty and crumbling, at least, New Yorkers would say, "the cultural advantages are great."
The original creation and rehearsal process
Notice the original three-level set itself, constructed mainly out of scaffolding, reinforcing that idea of cold, disconnected, modern urban life.
The Score broken down by Scott Miller (Abridged by faith)
The opening lyrics to Two Gentlemen of Verona are deliberately more childish than sophisticated. After all, how could these childish, spoiled young people have a sophisticated view of themselves? To give characters self-knowledge they haven’t earned would be bad writing. MacDermot’s other hit, Hair, made the same point, frequently giving its hippies (particularly the totally self-involved Berger) intentionally shallow, childish things to say or sing. Because so many of them were so young and were rejecting the guidance and accumulated wisdom of the older generation, they also tended to be selfish and self-involved. Two Gents is about the selfish side of the hippie movement. Sure it was about peace and love, but it was also about getting laid and getting stoned.
"Love, Is That You?" and "Summer, Summer."
References in this song to the changing of the seasons = young people’s constantly changing moods and loves.
The last of these first four solos introduces the running theme of "spring," rebirth, new beginnings, and yes, love.
This is also a song about a shallowness (or even a complete lack) of self-awareness that will drive the plot and a naïve understanding of love. This first song ends with the line, "Love reminds me of me." Of course it does. These are kids.
"I Love My Father" These kids throw around the word love a lot, but none of them really knows what love actually is. Proteus knows only what he’s read about, an idealized, courtly love. Julia wants perfect love, so she rejects anything that doesn’t hit that mark. Valentine has no interest in love whatsoever. And Silvia thinks she’s in love, but as she’ll admit to us later, she wouldn’t know a "spiritual relationship" (in other words, real love) if she tripped over it and broke her nose. They haven't experienced real love, so their take on it is shallow. At this point, all these kids know is the very different love of family, so those are the only terms in which they can think about love. Notice the end of the song: "I love my mirror, I want to tell me, I want to love me." This is a joyful song, but it's also a song about being selfish, and it tells us that this is a story about being selfish.
References in this song to the changing of the seasons = young people’s constantly changing moods and loves.
The last of these first four solos introduces the running theme of "spring," rebirth, new beginnings, and yes, love.
This is also a song about a shallowness (or even a complete lack) of self-awareness that will drive the plot and a naïve understanding of love. This first song ends with the line, "Love reminds me of me." Of course it does. These are kids.
"I Love My Father" These kids throw around the word love a lot, but none of them really knows what love actually is. Proteus knows only what he’s read about, an idealized, courtly love. Julia wants perfect love, so she rejects anything that doesn’t hit that mark. Valentine has no interest in love whatsoever. And Silvia thinks she’s in love, but as she’ll admit to us later, she wouldn’t know a "spiritual relationship" (in other words, real love) if she tripped over it and broke her nose. They haven't experienced real love, so their take on it is shallow. At this point, all these kids know is the very different love of family, so those are the only terms in which they can think about love. Notice the end of the song: "I love my mirror, I want to tell me, I want to love me." This is a joyful song, but it's also a song about being selfish, and it tells us that this is a story about being selfish.
Next is a series of "I Want" songs, that set up who the main characters are and what their central motivations are. "That’s a Very Interesting Question," a very unconventional song because it’s really nothing more than a stall while Proteus tries to think of an answer. While writers in the Rodgers and Hammerstein mold always insisted that characters in musicals could only break into song when the emotion became too "big" for spoken words, that rule was often broken by the time the experiments of the Sixties and Seventies got underway. Here, Proteus breaks into song to tread water. And just as we realize that he’s stalling, he comes up with a answer – something completely inane (he wants to be a rose on Julia’s breast?) – and we segue into the next song. In "I’d Like to Be a Rose," we contrast the two friends, one interested in nothing but love, the other focused on more "important" things, like money, fame, and power. Both these young men have some growing up to do, and that’s the spine of the story.
"Symphony" a song which is as much clumsy emotional blackmail as it is a promise of love. Cue Julia's "I Want" song, "I Am Not Interested in Love," laying out her emotional damage for us, along with the primary conflict of the show – Proteus and Julia are the central romantic couple but how will they ever end up together when Proteus understands love only in the shallowest way and Julia is terrified of love altogether.
"Pearls" the primary function of which is to get through the plot point that Proteus and Julia have sex before he leaves. This incident is not in the Shakespeare play, but it gives Julia a much stronger motivation for traveling to Milan. The song is really only there to give the characters time to copulate before Proteus leaves. But it also achieves some thematic work and, under the surface, it’s also a song about the awkwardness of first love and first sex. It tells us indirectly that both Proteus and Julia are virgins and therefore this sexual encounter is going to have huge implications.
"Symphony" a song which is as much clumsy emotional blackmail as it is a promise of love. Cue Julia's "I Want" song, "I Am Not Interested in Love," laying out her emotional damage for us, along with the primary conflict of the show – Proteus and Julia are the central romantic couple but how will they ever end up together when Proteus understands love only in the shallowest way and Julia is terrified of love altogether.
"Pearls" the primary function of which is to get through the plot point that Proteus and Julia have sex before he leaves. This incident is not in the Shakespeare play, but it gives Julia a much stronger motivation for traveling to Milan. The song is really only there to give the characters time to copulate before Proteus leaves. But it also achieves some thematic work and, under the surface, it’s also a song about the awkwardness of first love and first sex. It tells us indirectly that both Proteus and Julia are virgins and therefore this sexual encounter is going to have huge implications.
"Two Gentlemen of Verona." This is the moment when the audience realizes that Valentine and Proteus aren’t the gentlemen of the title; Julia and Lucetta are. And with the show opening around the same time that glam rock was taking hold, this blurring of gender lines must have felt unusually contemporary. But the strongest cultural comment in the song "Two Gentlemen of Verona" comes from Lucetta’s lyric, "Throw off all the fears you have – we’ll dress like men." Lucetta is the hippie here, encouraging Julia to let go of her entrenched assumptions about a male-dominated society, exactly the kind of cultural reassessment women all over America were in the midst of at this moment in history.
Follow the Rainbow, Two Gentlemen of Verona the musical, national tour cast
"To Whom It May Concern" to "Night Letter," we get details on Eglamour, on Thurio, on the Duke’s habit of sending Silvia’s boyfriends off to Vietnam. We also get a seduction, and true to Shakespeare, the seduction is unmistakably sexual, starting off with Silvia’s lists of body parts in. Imagery invoking sex, is peppered throughout "Night Letter," "hot," to drooling, to being "wetter," to licking, to slapping, and even the old standby, "S.W.A.K.," for "sealed with a kiss." As they did in "What an Interesting Question," here toward the end of "Night Letter," Guare and MacDermot once again give us musical stalling, as Valentine tries to gather his thoughts and ignore his penis. At the beginning of the show, Proteus is stalling over a question Valentine has asked him; here Valentine is stalling over a question from Silvia. This makes the point, continued in the following scene, that Valentine has become just as hopeless a lover as Proteus.
Act II starts with a very brief entr’acte, "Thou Hast Metamorphosed Me," but this time very up-tempo, with a rowdy, Latin rock beat. Here the music itself tells us that these love stories are going to spin out of control. Love is no longer represented by ballads in this story, but now by driving rock numbers. This plot is kicking into high gear and it won’t slow down till the end.
"What a Nice Idea," The premise of the song is familiar to anyone who’s been in dysfunctional love. Julia sings, "Because he loves her, he despises me. Because I love him, I pity him." These are complicated emotions. Standing there in male drag, she realizes that if she could be Silvia, she could just as easily be Proteus. She realizes that in a world where she can pass for a man, her options are suddenly more numerous. It’s a funny/sad moment, watching Julia suffer through indignities and escape into revenge fantasies; but it’s also a powerful commentary on gender and drag from a 1971 perspective. And MacDermot does something both subtle and powerful with the music in this song – with each verse, the rock beat gets stronger and more aggressive, mirroring Julia’s growing confidence. From here to the end of the story, Julia takes progressively more and more control of her situation, exposing her disguise, scolding Proteus, taking possession of him, and laying down her rules for how their relationship will now function. Julia changes more than any other character in the show – and so arguably she is the story's central protagonist – transforming for completely passive to fully active.
Stockard Channing was in the original chorus of Two Gentlemen and then took over the role of Julia on Broadway.
"Who is Silvia?" (a song actually found in the original play) is pure, overblown Shakespeare, love verses from a kid too in love with love to actually consider the feelings of the woman he’s serenading. And then Guare takes us screaming into the seventies with the next song, the driving "Love Me," in which Silvia scolds Proteus and his choir for idealizing her, for pretending to worship her without even bothering to know her (at this point, Proteus hasn’t even spoken to her!). The lush, choral music of "Who is Silvia?" gives way to the relentless, driving, angry beat of "Love Me." Silvia rejects the faux romanticism of high-flown poetry, and in the process, rejects Proteus as well.
Hattie Winston replaced Jonelle Allen as "Sylvia" later in the Broadway run
The habanera of "I’d Like to Be a Rose" to the calypso of "Calla Lilly Lady," the bolero of "Kidnapped," and most blatantly and comically in "Thurio’s Samba." About that song, Irene Dash quotes John Guare, in her book Shakespeare and the American Musical:
…first of all, Thurio is a fool, and secondly, this musical was playing primarily to an audience for its traveling theatre. The language would be understandable to that audience. They would recognize it as gibberish spoken to a fool by someone intent on winning points and convincing a rich suitor to continue to pursue [the Duke’s] daughter.
Though the chorus is full of nonsense syllables, it’s not without meaning. Like Hair did, here Two Gents is playing with words as percussion more so than as conveyors of meaning. Though it’s not obvious reading the script, what the audience actually hears is a playful and weirdly innocent incantation of the words fuck, cock, and pussy. Without actually saying the obscenities, the song still gets across its comically creepy sexuality.
But the score also plays with the conventions of old-school musical comedy, in the reprise of "Love’s Revenge," in "Hot Lover," and in "Milkmaid." In all three songs, the show’s creators play with the sillier practices of early musical comedy; in all three cases, the songs seem completely unmotivated, yet an audience accepts them because we so readily accept characters breaking into song in musical comedy. Two Gents was one of the first musicals to realize the value in returning to the devices, the energy, and the lack of a fourth wall that were hallmarks of George M. Cohan’s prototype musical comedies at the beginning of the twentieth century.
…first of all, Thurio is a fool, and secondly, this musical was playing primarily to an audience for its traveling theatre. The language would be understandable to that audience. They would recognize it as gibberish spoken to a fool by someone intent on winning points and convincing a rich suitor to continue to pursue [the Duke’s] daughter.
Though the chorus is full of nonsense syllables, it’s not without meaning. Like Hair did, here Two Gents is playing with words as percussion more so than as conveyors of meaning. Though it’s not obvious reading the script, what the audience actually hears is a playful and weirdly innocent incantation of the words fuck, cock, and pussy. Without actually saying the obscenities, the song still gets across its comically creepy sexuality.
But the score also plays with the conventions of old-school musical comedy, in the reprise of "Love’s Revenge," in "Hot Lover," and in "Milkmaid." In all three songs, the show’s creators play with the sillier practices of early musical comedy; in all three cases, the songs seem completely unmotivated, yet an audience accepts them because we so readily accept characters breaking into song in musical comedy. Two Gents was one of the first musicals to realize the value in returning to the devices, the energy, and the lack of a fourth wall that were hallmarks of George M. Cohan’s prototype musical comedies at the beginning of the twentieth century.
"Love Has Driven Me Sane" acts as a companion piece to the opening. This last song, a kind of coda after all the plots have been resolved, matches Shakespeare, who often ended his plays with a summation by one of the secondary characters. Here, this postscript delivers the show’s message: shallow love and love driven by lust will drive you crazy, but real love, adult love, will drive you sane. It’s a song firmly rooted in the hippie era, about letting go of the bullshit that always surrounds human interaction. The main characters have learned that "the shock of happiness" comes when they stop thinking about what they want and start thinking about what the person they love wants.
And though the "I Love My Father" section seemed shallow at the beginning here there is some more adult understanding of the interconnectedness of everyone. The discovery of real love, rather than the excitement of lust or the easy gratification of selfish love, teaches them what a wrong road they've all been on. When Launce sings, "Wonderland is not where Alice is..." he's standing in for all the lovers, who now understand that true, adult love doesn’t exist in a chaotic fantasy world of hearts and flowers and love notes, but that love and joy can be found in the real world.
All the crazy events have changed these young people and that in turn has changed the lyric they sing. Now that they have all learned something about becoming an adult, about caring for others, now this simplistic lyric transforms itself and becomes about much more, about civility, empathy, love of our fellow humans, and a rejection of the nasty, hateful public discourse of 1971 America – but also of America today.
And though the "I Love My Father" section seemed shallow at the beginning here there is some more adult understanding of the interconnectedness of everyone. The discovery of real love, rather than the excitement of lust or the easy gratification of selfish love, teaches them what a wrong road they've all been on. When Launce sings, "Wonderland is not where Alice is..." he's standing in for all the lovers, who now understand that true, adult love doesn’t exist in a chaotic fantasy world of hearts and flowers and love notes, but that love and joy can be found in the real world.
All the crazy events have changed these young people and that in turn has changed the lyric they sing. Now that they have all learned something about becoming an adult, about caring for others, now this simplistic lyric transforms itself and becomes about much more, about civility, empathy, love of our fellow humans, and a rejection of the nasty, hateful public discourse of 1971 America – but also of America today.
"We had this idea that the songs would function as kind of subtitles. You would be aware of the meaning, you would understand what the text was saying, and the poetry wouldn’t get in the way. The idea was to make it bold and simple, without reducing it in any way."
Guare says, "One day Raul Julia [as Proteus] would do a Harry Belafonte imitation, and the next day I’d say, ‘We have to have a Harry Belafonte number for Raul, and it’ll be ‘Calla Lily Lady.’ I would call Galt up and leave lyrics on his service, mail them to him, or drop them off. Songs were written, thrown away, and put back. Mel [Shapiro, the director] created a wonderful moonstruck atmosphere and bit by bit we assembled it."
HARRY BELAFONTE IF YOU DON'T KNOW WHO HE IS:
(here's the opportunity to click the link and pretend you knew the whole time, you're welcome)
Guare says, "One day Raul Julia [as Proteus] would do a Harry Belafonte imitation, and the next day I’d say, ‘We have to have a Harry Belafonte number for Raul, and it’ll be ‘Calla Lily Lady.’ I would call Galt up and leave lyrics on his service, mail them to him, or drop them off. Songs were written, thrown away, and put back. Mel [Shapiro, the director] created a wonderful moonstruck atmosphere and bit by bit we assembled it."
HARRY BELAFONTE IF YOU DON'T KNOW WHO HE IS:
(here's the opportunity to click the link and pretend you knew the whole time, you're welcome)
For the original production, we cast a Puerto Rican for Proteus and Speed, a Cuban for Julia, Valentine and Silvia and the Duke and occasionally Lucetta were played by Blacks, Launce was originally done in Yiddish, then went country western in a cast change, Eglamour was Chinese, Thurio was an Irishman, Lucetta a Russian-Danish girl. The chorus was every color under the sun.
Rolling Stone said the score sounded like "walking down the street in El Barrio with all the windows open and a different radio blaring out of each one."
Rolling Stone said the score sounded like "walking down the street in El Barrio with all the windows open and a different radio blaring out of each one."
“It has a surge of youth to it, at times an almost carnal intimation of sexuality, and a boisterous sense of love. It is precisely this that the new musical catches and makes its own. The musical also has a strange New York feel to it – in the music, a mixture of rock, lyricism and Caribbean patter, in Mr. Guare’s spare, at times even abrasive lyrics, in the story itself of small-town kids and big-town love. It also has a very New York sense of irreverence. It is a graffito written across a classic play, but the graffito has an insolent sense of style, and the classic play can still be clearly glimpsed underneath."
"This is no parlor trick of a musical; there’s a rich vein of Shakespeare’s favorite ingredient – the wondrous depths of the human heart – that elevates the show from cunning stunt to artful meditation on the destructive nature of power and the redemptive power of love." The same is true of Two Gents. Papp and the musical’s creative team returned to the original spirit of Shakespeare’s plays – rowdy, sexy, dirty, funny, popular, irreverent, rule-busting, and most of all, deeply, crazily human.
think baby, think think baby
If you happen to love reading (or looking at pictures of Clifton Davis) or would like doing more personal research here my sources that I used to compile this project:
Pictures and visual research:
http://broadwayworld.com/board/readmessage.php?thread=1057538&mobile=on
http://narrative.ly/trains-of-thought/tense-times-in-graffiti-town/
Articles:
http://www.newlinetheatre.com/twogentschapter.html
http://theater.nytimes.com/2005/08/16/theater/newsandfeatures/16vero.htmlhttp://www.shakespeareinamericanlife.org/stage/onstage/musicals/musical_2.cfm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/08/nyregion/08riots.html?pagewanted=all
http://womenshistory.about.com/od/feminism/a/Feminism-in-1971.htm
http://www.bobborst.com/popculture/top-100-songs-of-the-year/?year=1971
Books:
Shakespeare and the American Musical by Irene Dash
Pictures and visual research:
http://broadwayworld.com/board/readmessage.php?thread=1057538&mobile=on
http://narrative.ly/trains-of-thought/tense-times-in-graffiti-town/
Articles:
http://www.newlinetheatre.com/twogentschapter.html
http://theater.nytimes.com/2005/08/16/theater/newsandfeatures/16vero.htmlhttp://www.shakespeareinamericanlife.org/stage/onstage/musicals/musical_2.cfm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/08/nyregion/08riots.html?pagewanted=all
http://womenshistory.about.com/od/feminism/a/Feminism-in-1971.htm
http://www.bobborst.com/popculture/top-100-songs-of-the-year/?year=1971
Books:
Shakespeare and the American Musical by Irene Dash