A modern take on The Two Gentlemen of Verona
Two gentlemen of Calgary embody roles in Shakespeare by the Bow
In Shakespeare’s comedy The Two Gentlemen of Verona, best friends become bitter rivals in love.
Proteus and Valentine were inseparable best buds so it seemed only natural that Proteus would join his buddy when Valentine decided to go to Milan to broaden his horizons.
By the time the boat was ready to leave, Proteus had fallen madly in love with Julia so he felt he couldn’t possibly leave her or Verona. Eventually, Proteus’s father commanded his son go to Milan which Proteus did, only to fall instantly in love with Sylvia, the very girl Valentine was swooning over in Milan.
Proteus and the audience soon discover love trumps friendship and thus begins some major scheming on Proteus’s part.
Theatre Calgary has chosen The Two Gentlemen of Verona as its summer 2018 offering for Shakespeare by the Bow on Prince’s Island from June 29 through August 19. It has cast Justin Lanouette as Valentine and Bryson Wiese as his callous friend Proteus.
Though Wiese and Lanouette sought out careers in theatre for different reasons, they both insist that acting has given their lives new meaning.
Wiese, who born and raised in Calgary, was attending Notre Dame High School with his mind set on becoming a professional wrestler.
“I knew wrestling was all staged and faked; and all that trash talking and performing is what I liked about it. I felt I needed some acting skills to be a good wrestler so I enrolled in drama,” says Wiese.
“It didn’t take too long for me to realize I was not cut out to be a muscle-bound wrestler, but by that time I really liked acting and being on stage, so I changed my life direction.”
Wiese enrolled in theatre at the University of Calgary and immediately after graduating this year auditioned for Shakespeare by the Bow.
“I had seen a couple of my friends in the Shakespeare by the Bow production of As You Like it last summer and that got me really fired up to do the same.”
Wiese says he is wrestling with Proteus’s betrayals of Julia and Valentine, insisting “it really hurts me to do those scenes because his actions are so sleazy.”
Lanouette, whose parents were in the military, grew up in British Columbia, Saskatchewan and Nova Scotia and he began acting in Moose Jaw when he was 18.
He says his decision to audition for his first play, The Pirates of Penzance, was his saving grace.
Three years earlier, his father was killed in a tragic helicopter crash off the coast of Newfoundland. “I took my father’s death very hard. I put it all on myself and it took theatre to teach me not to beat myself up over something I had no control over.
“I had so much anger and grief and I channelled (that) into my acting,” says Lanouette, who took the theatre course at Rosebud when he realized this was the career he wanted.
Lanouette says his biggest challenge in playing Valentine was to show the character’s “immense sense of joy.
“His pure vitality is a real challenge for me to play because that’s not really me. I’d like to be like Valentine, so very up and living life to the fullest. He’s teaching me that and I feel I’m learning.”
Director Dean Paul Gibson has set his Two Gentlemen in the 1980s so he suggested the young actors watch some John Hughes movies such as Pretty in Pink, The Breakfast Club and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off as well as St. Elmo’s Fire and Less Than Zero, with some Top Gun thrown in for good measure.
It didn’t take too long for me to realize I was not cut out to be a muscle-bound wrestler, but by that time I really liked acting and being on stage.