SOURCE: Taylor, Gary. “Theatrical Proximities: The Stratford Festival 1998.” Shakespeare Quarterly 50, no. 3 (autumn 1999): 340.

In the following excerpt, Taylor asserts that Richard Rose's production of The Two Gentlemen of Verona left the audience uninvolved and disengaged.

The Two Gentlemen of Verona was jolly-on-a-trolley, full of high spirits, high voices, clever gimmicks, clever speeches. On at least one occasion it literally filled the Festival cavern: the first act ended and the intermission began with the sound of an airplane circling low overhead and leaflets dropping from the ceiling, which turned out to be “Wanted” posters for the fugitive Valentine. And the opening scene imaginatively and economically established the play's social world: a championship-hockey-team photo shoot, followed by Graham Abbey's jock-Valentine and David Jansen's nerd-Proteus circling each other on the ice. But it was downhill from there. Richard Rose's production wasn't nearly as funny, or as real, as Monette's Much Ado or...