Insights A Study Guide to the Utah Shakespeare Festival
Shakespeare’s Worst! The articles in these study guides are not meant to mirror or interpret any particular productions at the Utah Shakespeare Festival. They are meant, instead, to be an educational jumping-off point to understanding and enjoying the play (in any production at any theatre) a bit more thoroughly. Therefore the stories of the plays and the interpretative articles (and even characters at times) may differ from what is ultimately produced on stage.
Also, some of these articles (especially the synopses) reveal the ending and other “surprises” in some plays. If you don’t want to know this information before seeing the plays, you may want to reconsider studying the information in this section.
The Study Guide is published by the Utah Shakespeare Festival, 351 West Center Street; Cedar City, UT 84720. Bruce C. Lee, publications manager and editor; Clare Campbell, graphic artist. Copyright © 2020, Utah Shakespeare Festival. Please feel free to download and print The Study Guide, as long as you do not remove any identifying mark of the Utah Shakespeare Festival.
For more information about Festival education programs: Utah Shakespeare Festival 351 West Center Street Cedar City, Utah 84720 435-586-7880 www.bard.org.
Cover Art for Shakespeare’s Worst! by Cully Long. Shakespeare’s Worst!
Contents
Information on the Play Synopsis 4 Characters 5 About the Playwright 6
Scholarly Articles on the Play Two Gents, or Not Two Gents 8
Utah Shakespeare Festival 3 351 West Center Street • Cedar City, Utah 84720 • 435-586-7880 Synopsis
The actor playing Launce is bored and disgruntled about being a servant in Shakespeare’s supposedly worst play, Two Gentlemen of Verona. While the other actors play out the story of romance, betrayal, and mistaken identity between two sets of lovers, the actor playing Launce is all too happy to tell the audience exactly what he thinks about the story, his fellow actors, and life in general.
4 Utah Shakespeare Festival 351 West Center Street • Cedar City, Utah 84720 • 435-586-7880 Characters
An Actor Playing Launce: Playing Proteus’s servant, this actor is not happy with his career or this play, and he lets the audience know it.
An Actor Playing Proteus: Best friends with Valentine, Proteus loves Julia.
An Actor Playing Valentine: Best friends with Proteus, Valentine falls in love with Silvia when he goes to Milan.
An Actor Playing Speed: Valentine’s servant.
An Actor Playing Julia: A lady, Julia is in love with Proteus.
An Actor Playing Lucetta: Julia’s maid.
An Actor Playing Silvia: Valentine’s love.
An Actor Playing Duke: Silvia’s father.
A Sock Puppet, Crab: Launce’s dog.
Utah Shakespeare Festival 5 351 West Center Street • Cedar City, Utah 84720 • 435-586-7880 About the Playwrights: Mike Reiss and Nick Newlin By Lisa Larson
While the idea of one of the nation’s renowned Shakespeare festivals producing a spoof entitled Shakespeare’s Worst! may seem a little outside the norm, anyone familiar with this side-splitting comedy and the playwrights behind it will likely be touting Shakespeare’s Worst! as one of this season’s best at the Utah Shakespeare Festival. Created by Peabody and four-time Emmy award winning writer for The Simpsons Mike Reiss, with co-author Nick Newlin, Shakespeare’s Worst portrays a quick-moving version of Two Gentlemen of Verona—with a twist. Capitalizing on some opinions that Two Gentlemen of Verona is the Bard’s worst play, Reiss and Newlin’s version features one actor who is aware of the production’s shortcomings and decides to helpfully point those things out to the audience throughout the show. “It’s fast, it’s funny, it’s educational,” Reiss said in an interview in 2017. His typical tongue-in-cheek humor is evident as he adds, “You can tell your friends, ‘Oh, I saw Shakespeare,’ not ‘I got drunk and saw a quick show.’” The run time for Shakespeare’s Worst! is quick by Shakespeare standards—only about seventy-five minutes. But it’s packed with all the humor one might expect from someone who made his career writing the scripts for America’s favorite cartoon family, The Simpsons.
Mike Reiss Reiss’s involvement with Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, Maggie, and more may be among his most internationally acclaimed projects—but it certainly isn’t his only claim to fame. Early in his career, Reiss worked with Al Jean as a writer and producer on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, ALF, Sledge Hammer, and It’s Garry Shandling’s Show. Then in 1989 he and Jean took their talent to the animated world of Springfield, Illinois, writing the first thirteen episodes of the Fox Network series The Simpsons. “The Simpsons wouldn’t have been the Simpsons without (Reiss),” Sam Simon, co-developer of The Simpsons said in an interview in 2009. Eventually, after season four of the show, Reiss left to create The Critic, another animated project, this time about film critic Jay Sherman. During his career, Reiss has written jokes for Joan Rivers, Garry Shandling, Johnny Carson and Pope Francis. You can also see Reiss’s handiwork inside numerous film screenplays. He’s written jokes for the film Ice Age and Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, as well as Horton Hears A Who. Reiss has published several children’s books and he even co-authored his own memoir, Springfield Confidential: Jokes, Secrets and Outright Lies from a Lifetime Writing for The Simpsons. With all this television and book writing experience filling up his resume, Reiss eventually decided to turn his attention to the stage. Why? “Because after a point you get tired of earning money and having people see your work,” Reiss says, in a way that
6 Utah Shakespeare Festival 351 West Center Street • Cedar City, Utah 84720 • 435-586-7880 only he can, in a YouTube interview. Turning his talents to the stage seemed to Reiss like a natural fit. In some ways, he said he felt like he’d been “writing a play a day” when he was writing for TV, according to an A&E interview in 2013 discussing his play I’m Connecticut. In television, everyday “you write it and you watch it,” he said. “You get very good at assessing what will and won’t be funny, what a scene needs. Playwrights don’t (usually) have that advantage.” It’s an advantage that was once again put to great use when Reiss and his former college buddy Nick Newlin decided to collaborate to write a spoof on what some consider to be the worst play Shakespeare ever wrote.
Joining Forces with Nick Newlin Adorned in a jester-style hat and equipped with a disarming, self-deprecating style, Nick Newlin recounts his relationship with Reiss in a 2017 promotional video for their joint project, Shakespeare’s Worst! “Mike Reiss and I went to college together many years ago. After college Mike became an Emmy award winning Simpsons comedy writer and I became a juggling jester at Renaissance fairs around the country,” he said. Newlin’s career eventually led to teaching Shakespeare at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington DC. As the author of a book series titled, 30 Minute Shakespeare, Newlin said his goal is to get kids up on their feet performing the work of the Bard in a fun and accessible way. Ultimately Newlin’s ability to make Shakespeare fun and Reiss’s ability to make fun of Shakespeare led to the perfect collaborative team. Although Reiss said his somewhat pedestrian research on the topic revealed at least eight contenders for the title of being the worst play Shakespeare ever wrote, Newlin felt strongly the top, or bottom, of that list is The Two Gentlemen of Verona, and ultimately Reiss agreed. “The end of the play is such a train wreck that in our show we have to play it three times in a row just to let it sink in,” Reiss said in a BBC interview in 2017. “That is why I picked it,” Newlin said in the same interview “One of the characters tries to go after his best friend’s girlfriend and then when she says no, he basically tries to attack her. Then the other best friend comes up and castigates him for it, but for some reason two seconds later the best friend whose girlfriend has been attacked is offering his girlfriend to his friend and they’ve made up in three seconds for no reason. It’s just not right.” The play itself, however, comes together in a way that is not only right, but hilarious. Shakespeare’s Worst! will take place as a full production inside the intimate Anes Studio Theatre at the Utah Shakespeare Festival Aug. 5 through Oct. 9.
Utah Shakespeare Festival 7 351 West Center Street • Cedar City, Utah 84720 • 435-586-7880 Two Gents or Not Two Gents By David G Anderson
Some may find it curious given the eponymous oeuvre of Shakespeare that Mike Reiss—long time writer on The Simpsons—and Nick Newlin would land on The Two Gentlemen of Verona as Shakespeare’s worst play. Granted there is that geographical incongruity of sailing by ship to and from inland cities, and unequivocally the most horrible ending in a Shakespearean play. It is as if Shakespeare looked down at his Rolex, noticed the time, and said, “Two and a half hours?” and hurriedly scribbled, “The End!” However, within the expansive cosmos of Shakespeare there are likelier candidates for “worst” like: Troilus and Cressida and Timon of Athens. Two Gents does have its charms. It’s a lively and often funny play, and being one of the Bard’s earliest plays, it embodies “an anthology of bits and pieces waiting to be crafted into more compelling drama” (Marjorie Garber, Shakespeare After All, p. 43). It also has two minor characters who become major characters in Shakespeare’s Worst!, and who present love at its purest. The twist? They are a servant and his dog, Launce and Crab. Why else would anyone endure a whipping, being locked in the stockades, and stand on a pillory for crimes committed by their dog? It must be love! Nevertheless, for discussion purposes and enjoyment of this hilarious play, the acceptance of Two Gents as Shakespeare’s worst is vital. So, please reserve your judgements and momentarily adopt this premise that the Bard wrote nothing worse. The perfect portrayal, synopsis, and genesis of Shakespeare’s Worst! came in a personal conversation with Reiss, “The idea was to do a straight-forward production of Shakespeare’s worst play, but with a minor character constantly commenting to the audience about how bad the play sucks, call it Mystery Science Theatre 1600.” Before reviewing the torrent of cringe-worthy giggles, the cataclysm of theatrical incompetence, and the babbling of a multitude of seemingly inconsequential lines, which pretty much defines badness, (which in this case is good), an abbreviated Cliff Notes adaptation of Two Gents might prove helpful. “The play is a kind of love cartoon,” (Garber, 44). The dyad of Proteus and Valentine, both aptly named (Proteus or protean—changeable, and Valentine—loving to a fault) are the best of friends living in Verona. Proteus loves Julia who more than reciprocates. Valentine’s father demands he sail to Milan (which according to Shakespeare’s Worst! stage directions has a variety of pronunciations) where he fiercely falls in love with the Duke’s daughter, Silvia, who secretly reciprocates. Visiting Milan, Proteus decides he now wants Silvia (critics call this memetic desire), so he perfidiously throws Valentine under the bus so the Duke will banish Valentine. This would pave the way for Silvia who is supposed to marry her father’s favorite, the dull but apparently wealthy Thurio. Julia, now posing as a page, decides to cross-dress and chase after her man, Proteus. Silvia, sneaks off with the help of a loyal knight, romantically named Eglamour, to seek the haven of a friar’s cell. They all end up in the forest somewhere outside of Milan. This is the very forest where, of course, Valentine lives in exile and has “been adopted by a bunch of outlaws as their king. Captured by the outlaws (who turn out, in typical Shakespearean style, to be more ‘worthy . . . civil, full of good’ [5.4.150–153] than the better born aristocratic lovers)” (Garber, 49-50). And where the most exasperating and puzzling Shakespearean verbal exchanges take place.
8 Utah Shakespeare Festival 351 West Center Street • Cedar City, Utah 84720 • 435-586-7880 The furious Silvia challenges Proteus regarding his malevolent behavior and his “perjury” in betraying his friend and forswearing his former love: Silvia: Thou counterfeit to thy true friend. Proteus: In love. Who respects friend? Silvia: All men but Proteus. (5.4.53–54) The increasingly dislikable Proteus attempts to rape her. “’I’ll force thee to my desire,” (5.4.64). This being, “the very threat against which he was supposedly defending her, a few lines before, when he came upon her in the outlaws’ grasp,” (Garber, 50). Valentine jumps out of hiding to rescue Silvia and to denounce Proteus: Valentine: Thou common friend, that’s without faith or love, For such is a friend now. Treacherous man, Thou hast beguil’d my hopes; nought but mine eye Could have persuaded me: now I dare not say I have one friend alive; thou wouldst disapprove me. Who should be trusted now, when one’s right hand Is perjured to the bosom? Proteus, I am sorry I must never trust thee more, But count the world a stranger for thy sake. The private wound is deepest: O time most accurst, ‘Mongst all foes that a friend should be the worst. Proteus: My shame and guilt confounds me. Forgive me, Valentine: if hearty sorrow Be sufficient ransom for offence, As e’er I did commit. Valentine: Then I am paid, And once again I do perceive thee honest. Who by repentance is not satisfied, Is nor of heaven, nor earth, for these are please’d: By penitence th’ eternal’s wrath appeased. And that my love may appear plain and free All that was mine in Silvia I give thee. (5.4.62–68) Say what? This passage has scholars, critics, editors, even actors darting from manuscript to authoritarian text for some rational elucidation. Is there possibly some textual error, or some indecipherable variant, perhaps a line given to Valentine in error? It is all horribly mystifying. Julia promptly swoons and the horrified Silvia thankfully is no longer required to speak for the rest of the play. The “changed” Proteus might be the most revolting thing in all of Shakespeare, and no one is buying it. “What is in Silvia’s face but I may spy / More fresh in Julia’s with a constant eye” (4.4.103). Translation, “Any one woman will do as well as another. All men, Shakespeare hints, are invited to substitute any two women’s names for Silvia and Julia,” (Harold Bloom, Shakespeare, The Invention of the Human, p. 40).
Utah Shakespeare Festival 9 351 West Center Street • Cedar City, Utah 84720 • 435-586-7880 Resuming now to the hilarity, and atrocity (in a good way), of the play Shakespeare’s Worst. The fourth wall of theatre is shattered by Launce (Proteus’s servant) to inform the audience that the horridness that we are witnessing is even more awful then we imagine. Reiss’s decision to spotlight Launce as the interpreter/critic is pure brilliance. “Launce and his dog matter, for the rest” (Bloom, 40). Dying is easy, comedy is difficult, as the actor playing Launce quickly discovers. He might be the quintessential actor making the best of an actor’s worst nightmare. The play and the production are so bad that he feels it necessary to interrupt the play’s progress in order to deflect fault. His intent is to mitigate how harsh we judge him for all the awfulness. The ardent solicitation of our sympathies is shameful (which in this play is good). He exhibits nifty remote-control powers, being able to pause, resume, and fast-forward action. (Wouldn’t a remote with fast-forward capabilities while viewing a poorly-produced Shakespearean play be handy?). How regretful is the play? Take the scene featuring Proteus and his not-so-swift servant Speed, Launce counts with/for us the number of times the word “sheep” is uttered—and the normal consequence of folks who count sheep is? Crab the dog, notorious scene stealer in every other production of Two Gents, emerges here as a sock puppet (Can you say low-budget production?). His theft of scenes escalates now that he has lines constantly interrupting and frustrating the less- puissant Launce. Launce and Crab mock politics, other character’s names, and whatever else strikes their fancy. There is the skipping of huge parts of the play, but rather than offering explanations, Launce merely says “You’re Welcome.” The above-detailed ending of Two Gents is so appalling Launce demands that everyone redo the scene in English and once again in American. The awfulness remains, but the amusement escalates. We live in an often vexing and byzantine world, and sometimes it’s wonderful to momentarily exit that world, to escape and to laugh. The endless one-liners, coupled with the awkward moments, mutiny, and remarkable hysterics make this supposed “Shakespeare’s Worst” play a laughing stock (in a good way). Laughter is the omphalos here, so bring a bag to breathe into if you are prone to gelastic spells. However, if laughing (i.e. fall out of your chair laughing) isn’t your cup of tea, Pericles and Cymbeline are playing at the Utah Shakespeare Festival this year.
10 Utah Shakespeare Festival 351 West Center Street • Cedar City, Utah 84720 • 435-586-7880