Two Gentlemen of Verona
William Shakespeare
Silicon Valley Shakespeare
Rash decisions based on love at first sight, gender-switching disguises in order to spy on a cheating lover, servants spilling puns by the dozens about their love-crazed masters, banishment to the forest where all will eventually be made right, and a totally illogical happy ending for all — These are just a sampling of William Shakespeare, favorite tricks of the trade that the Bard tested out in one of his earliest comedies, Two Gentlemen of Verona. While modern audiences sometimes have trouble swallowing some of the more unrealistic and disquieting aspects of the play, Silicon Valley Shakespeare under the wildly imaginative and insightful direction of Thomas Gough cleverly plops the action in the neon and glow of the 1980s with an ongoing soundtrack of the decade’s hits that ensures its Two Gentlemen of Verona is a modern-day update that totally works for an evening of laugh-out-loud entertainment.
Please continue to Talkin’Broadway for the rest of my review.
Rating: 4 E
Two Gentlemen of Verona continues through June 28, 2026, in a two-hour, thirty-minute (one intermission) outdoor production by Silicon Valley Shakespeare at Willow Street Frank Bramhall Park, San Jose. Admission is free.
Photo Credit: Evelyn Huynh
