The Two Gentlemen of Verona
Arkangel Shakespeare
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Narrated by:
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Michael Maloney
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Damian Lewis
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Saskia Wickham
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Lucy Robinson
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John Woodvine
About this listen
Proteus loves Julia in Verona, Valentine loves Silvia in Milan. But when Proteus meets Silvia, he falls for her too, and the heartbroken Julia sets out in pursuit.
This delightful and sometimes disquieting early comedy of love lost and found offers lyrical poetry, disguise, clowning, outlaws, and a most unreliable dog.
Proteus is played by Michael Maloney and Valentine by Damian Lewis. Silvia is Saskia Wickham, Julia is Lucy Robinson, and John Woodvine plays Launce.
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Falstaff is both a comic and tragic central protagonist in Shakespeare's three Henry plays. He is companion to Prince Hal (the future Henry V), who loves him, goads him, teases him, indulges his vast appetites, and commits all sorts of mischief with him. Award-winning author and esteemed professor Harold Bloom examines Falstaff with the deepest compassion and sympathy and also with unerring wisdom. He uses the relationship between Falstaff and Hal to explore the devastation of severed bonds and the heartbreak of betrayal.
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Falstaff brooks no rebuttal.
- By Darwin8u on 02-06-20
By: Harold Bloom
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Samson Agonistes
- By: John Milton
- Narrated by: David de Keyser, Philip Madoc, Matthew Morgan, and others
- Length: 1 hr and 51 mins
- Original Recording
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Samson Agonistes, the 'dramatic poem' by John Milton, was published in 1671, three years before the poet's death. Written in the form of a Greek tragedy, with the Chorus commenting on the action, it follows the biblical story of the blind Samson as he wreaks his revenge on the Philistines who have imprisoned him. A powerful subject, with a personal resonance for the blind Milton, it is a perfect work for the medium of audiobook where poetry and drama can be balanced equally.
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Unbelievable
- By Anonymous User on 11-06-20
By: John Milton
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Don Quixote (Adapted for Modern Listeners)
- By: Miguel de Cervantes
- Narrated by: Johnny Heller
- Length: 4 hrs and 39 mins
- Abridged
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Quixotic is a word that the dictionary defines as "extravagantly chivalrous or romantic; visionary...." and that is a fitting definition, indeed, for this charming retelling of Don Quixote, the 17t- century Spanish classic by Miguel de Cervantes, now updated for the modern listener. The gallant and fragile Quixote will touch listeners, as will his faithful squire Sancho Panza and the tragically beautiful heroine of the gentle Don’s chivalries, the fair Dulcinea.
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Great way in
- By pxriver on 07-12-18
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Don Quixote
- Translated by Edith Grossman
- By: Edith Grossman - translator, Miguel de Cervantes
- Narrated by: George Guidall
- Length: 39 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Sixteenth-century Spanish gentleman Don Quixote, fed by his own delusional fantasies, takes to the road in search of chivalrous adventures. But his quest leads to more trouble than triumph. At once humorous, romantic, and sad, Don Quixote is a literary landmark. This fresh edition, by award-winning translator Edith Grossman, brings the tale to life as never before.
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My Fourth Try at an Audible Quixote
- By James on 12-24-12
By: Edith Grossman - translator, and others
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Don Quixote
- By: John Ormsby - translator, Miguel de Cervantes
- Narrated by: Roy McMillan
- Length: 36 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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The most influential work of the entire Spanish literary canon and a founding work of modern Western literature, Don Quixote is also one of the greatest works ever written. Hugely entertaining but also moving at times, this episodic novel is built on the fantasy life of one Alonso Quixano, who lives with his niece and housekeeper in La Mancha. Quixano, obsessed by tales of knight errantry, renames himself ‘Don Quixote’ and with his faithful servant Sancho Panza, goes on a series of quests.
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More than funny
- By Colin on 08-21-11
By: John Ormsby - translator, and others
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The Plays of Sophocles
- Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus, and Antigone
- By: Sophocles
- Narrated by: David McCallion
- Length: 5 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Sophocles was born at Colonus, near Athens in about 496 BC and is considered to be one of the premier playwrights of Greek tragedy. His stories may have been filled with strife, but Sophocles himself was prosperous and came from a good family. It is said that he was handsome, wealthy, and a highly respected citizen of Athens. During his life, he wrote over 120 plays and was instrumental in how plays would eventually be performed, including the addition of stage props.
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Bad Dialogue
- By Zoe Olvera on 08-12-18
By: Sophocles
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Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
- By: J. R. R. Tolkien
- Narrated by: Terry Jones
- Length: 4 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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A collection of three medieval English poems, translated by Tolkien for the modern-day reader and containing romance, tragedy, love, sex and honour.
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An absolute delight!
- By Shannon Slee on 07-15-18
By: J. R. R. Tolkien
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The Canterbury Tales: A Retelling
- By: Peter Ackroyd
- Narrated by: Keith Moore, Toby Leonard Moore, Colin McPhillamy, and others
- Length: 16 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Author Peter Ackroyd has won the Somerset Maugham Award, the Whitbread Novel of the Year, and the Guardian Fiction Prize, and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Based on Geoffrey Chaucer’s immortal work, this retelling of The Canterbury Tales follows a party of travelers as they tell stories amongst themselves about love and chivalry, saints and legends, travel and adventure. Through allegory, satire, and humor, the tales help pass the time during their journey.
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WOW
- By Mitchell Drimmer on 02-25-15
By: Peter Ackroyd
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Oedipus the King
- By: Sophocles
- Narrated by: full cast
- Length: 1 hr and 46 mins
- Original Recording
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In Sophocles' tragedy, Oedipus discovers that he has been caught in his terrible destiny, unknowingly murdering his father and marrying his mother.
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Superb
- By Mark on 11-24-09
By: Sophocles
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The Arabian Nights
- By: Andrew Lang - translator
- Narrated by: Suehyla El Attar
- Length: 11 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Full of mischief, valor, ribaldry, and romance, The Arabian Nights has enthralled readers for centuries. These are the tales that saved the life of Scheherazade, whose husband, the king, executed each of his wives after a single night of marriage. Beginning an enchanting story each evening, Scheherazade always withheld the ending: A thousand and one nights later, her life was spared forever.
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Not unabridged Burton--this is Lang
- By Richard and Diana Chicago on 06-25-12
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Faust
- By: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
- Narrated by: David McCallion
- Length: 5 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, is a poem, translated by Bayard Taylor, which tells the beautiful and emotional story of a man who has seen and done it all. However, despite all of his learning and education, his life still feels empty and unaccomplished. He believes wholeheartedly that there is something else out there. Faust, having exhausted all other fields of study, turns to magic for fulfillment. He summons the devil and makes a pact - that if the devil can show him something rewarding and fulfilling, he will give the devil his soul.
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Misleading
- By Grant Pajak on 03-29-17
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Good book, Average recording
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Brilliantly manipulative and entirely amoral, the hero-villain Richard is one of Shakespeare's greatest roles. The Yorkists have emerged victorious from the civil wars and Edward IV wears the English crown. But Edward's misshapen brother Richard harbors kingly ambitions and will stop at nothing to achieve the throne. In a fatal battle on Bosworth Field, Richard meets the ghosts of all whom he has murdered and the Earl of Richmond, the future King Henry VII.
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The Merchant of Venice
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Good book, Average recording
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Richard III
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Spectacular acting
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Problem play
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The young king of Navarre and three of his courtiers have vowed to lock themselves away for three years of study and fasting, and to forswear the company of women for this period. No sooner is their vow made than it is tested, however, as the princess of France and three of her ladies arrive in Navarre on a diplomatic mission. The young men fall instantly and hopelessly in love, and the tension between their vow and their passion forms the subject of this charming and sparkling early comedy.
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Honorificabilitudinitatibus!
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King Lear
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This shattering drama of isolation and loss is one of the greatest tragedies in world literature. King Lear of Britain has three daughters: the hard-hearted Goneril and Regan, and the good and gentle Cordelia. He determines to divide his kingdom between them, giving the largest share to she who can say she loves him the best. Lear's tragic lack of judgment and self-knowledge is paralleled by the blindness of the loyal Gloucester who is persuaded to reject his virtuous son, Edgar, in favor of the villainous Edmund.
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tragedy par excellence
- By turbopro on 08-10-16
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Richard II
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The sensitive and poetic Richard II is undoubtedly the rightful king of England, but he is unscrupulous and weak. When his cousin Henry Bolingbroke returns from banishment and mounts a challenge to his authority, Richard's right to the throne proves of little help to him. Richard is forced to abdicate, but as his power is stripped away, he gains dignity and self-awareness, and he meets his death heroically.
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I wasted time, and now doth time waste me.
- By Darwin8u on 04-10-17
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King John: The Arkangel Shakespeare
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King John of England is pitted against the united powers of France, Brittany, Austria, and the Papacy. Will England be destroyed by his fatal indecision? As alliances are made, broken, and remade, the paranoid and erratic John reveals his weakness and reliance on those around him - including his powerful mother, Queen Elinor, and Faulconbridge, the cynical and witty bastard son of the dead King Richard I.
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Life is as tedious as a twice-told tale
- By Darwin8u on 05-08-17
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The Sirens of Titan
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The richest, most depraved man on Earth, Malachi Constant, is offered a chance to take a space journey to distant worlds with a beautiful woman at his side. Of course, there's a catch to the invitation....
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Absolutely Outstanding
- By Robert on 01-07-12
By: Kurt Vonnegut
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Coriolanus
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Rome is a city divided, nobility and common-people locked in mutual suspicion. The patrician Caius Marcius, later called Coriolanus, is Rome's greatest soldier, but his proud refusal to accommodate himself to the demands of the plebeians leads to banishment and death. A Roman history as well as tragedy, Coriolanus is a complex and subtle exploration of the themes of absolution and compromise, both in the political world and in the life of the individual.
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Let it be virtuous to be obsinate
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BBC Radio Shakespeare: A Collection of Four History Plays
- By: William Shakespeare
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- Original Recording
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Introduced by Sir Richard Eyre, these four iconic productions, dramatised with star casts, bring Shakespeare’s gripping histories to life in all their rich complexity.
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The narrators are outstanding here.
- By Jennifer Baratta She/Her on 02-13-21
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The Two Noble Kinsmen
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Palamon and Arcite, cousins and bosom friends, are taken prisoner by Duke Theseus of Athens. While in captivity, they spy the beautiful Emilia. Both fall instantly in love with her, and their attachment to each other turns to hate. This dark-edged tragicomedy is now widely regarded as having been written by Shakespeare in collaboration with John Fletcher. Composed sometime in 1613-14, The Two Noble Kinsmen is the final play in Shakespeare's dramatic career.
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1
- By Darwin8u on 12-27-17
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BBC Radio Shakespeare: A Collection of Eight Comedies
- By: William Shakespeare
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- Original Recording
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A collection of BBC Radio 3's iconic Shakespeare productions: eight comedies with all-star casts including David Tennant, Helena Bonham Carter, Anne-Marie Duff, Martin Jarvis, Siân Phillips and Miriam Margolyes. The plays included in this collection are: Much Ado About Nothing, As You Like It, A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Merchant of Venice, Twelfth Night, The Tempest, The Taming of the Shrew, and All's Well That Ends Well.
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Not told entirely
- By Gabsalot on 12-11-21
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Henry VI, Part 1
- Arkangel Shakespeare
- By: William Shakespeare
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- Original Recording
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The all-conquering King Henry V is dead, and the throne is occupied by his infant son, Henry VI. The good Duke Humphrey of Gloucester has been appointed protector, but a struggle for power soon develops between the young king's Lancastrian relatives and the powerful house of York under Richard Plantagenet. Meanwhile the French, led by Joan of Arc, the maid of Orleans, threaten to win back the territories lost to Henry V.
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Good Lord, what madness rules in brainsick men
- By Darwin8u on 01-22-17
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Shakespeare: The Complete Works
- Argo Classics
- By: William Shakespeare
- Narrated by: Ian McKellen, Derek Jacobi, Diana Rigg, and others
- Length: 98 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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All of the Shakespeare plays within the Argo Classics catalogue are performed by the Marlowe Dramatic Society and Professional Players. The Marlowe was founded in 1907 with a mission to focus on effective delivery of verse, respect the integrity of texts and rescue neglected plays by Shakespeare’s contemporaries and the less performed plays of Shakespeare himself. The Marlowe has performed annually at Cambridge Arts Theatre since its opening in 1936 and continues to produce some of the finest actors of their generations.
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Great collection marred by a few missing sections
- By J. T. Woosley on 02-27-21
What listeners say about The Two Gentlemen of Verona
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Darwin8u
- 01-02-17
For truth hath better deeds than words to grace it
"That man that hath a tongue, I say is no man,
If with his tongue he cannot win a woman.
William Shakespeare, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act III, Scene I
The first play in my 2017 First Folio journey is 'The Two Gentlemen of Verona'. The Bard is often held up as a genius when writing about human nature. This, his first play, has its moments and certainly its characters, but the ending especially shows that Shakespeare's brilliance came line-upon-line and not all at once. The ending seemed too much like a clip-on bow tie: too balanced, too perfect, too forgiving, too fake. It didn't ring true.
That said, the play isn't a complete disaster. This comedy of love did provide us with a cross-dressing Julia (Shakespeare will return to this), and servants that are often wiser than their masters. Speed and Launce were especially nice characters.
There were also several nice lines, specifically:
- "Fire that's closest kept burns most of all."
- "Till I have found each letter in the letter."
- "To her whose worth makes other worthies nothing."
- "Love, lend me wings to make my purpose swift,
As thou has lent me wit to pot this drift."
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12 people found this helpful
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- S. Riggs
- 01-05-18
Love everything about this audio book!
The narrators were brilliant. Very well done. This is my first Shakespeare audio book, I'm very familiar with his work, and I cannot recommend this audio version highly enough. I'm ready to listen to it again I loved it so much!
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- JMN Reynolds
- 06-01-16
This is well done
None are so blind as those who think they are in love when they are only the fools of Eros. Shakespeare helps all find true love in this delightful comedy. . . the play is well acted and the direction keeps the lines moving and the comedy flowing. I do miss seeing the dog.
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- Kindle Customer
- 09-10-18
Bad music choice
The upbeat jazz played between and during scenes didn't match the play's action or feeling.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Diana S. Long
- 01-06-18
Friendship and Fidelity
I listened to the Arkangel Audio while reading Delphi Complete Works of William Shakespeare E-Book. The music from the audio quite threw me off a bit as it was more geared to a piano bar than a rendition of the play from the 16th - 17th century, director's prerogative no doubt, but I adjusted. In this play, which is considered a comedy, the main theme is friendship and fidelity. Add a character who is rather entertaining with a dog (replete with panting in the background) and we have a very entertaining and enjoyable work.
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- the lenz
- 11-16-15
Great but for two faults
The pronunciation of Milan was odd. And I suppose jazz helps to improve the play for modern audiences. It would otherwise be old and boring?
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- 3056Warfield
- 10-05-16
Chapter divisions & headings
Rather than a division into chapters, a division based on the scenes of the play would have been much more user/listener friendly...
Also would have been very helpful to have the act and scene numbers - rather than the chapter number - appear in the banner heading....
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- Amazon Customer
- 12-11-23
The terrible choice of music
Was this recorded in a 1950s lounge? Surely much better music is available. Something from Shakespeare’s era?
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
- Tad Davis
- 06-08-14
Prentice work
It's been a major treat finally having the Arkangel Shakespeare available on Audible - almost as good as finally getting the Beatles on iTunes. This remarkable series of recordings includes every play Shakespeare wrote, in a full-court-press audio production with sound effects and an original score. The series is 10-15 years old at this point, but it holds up magnificently.
"The Two Gentlemen of Verona" is not one of Shakespeare's best. My own private theory is that it was his first play, written before he even left Stratford. Most of the scenes involve only two people; the famous (or infamous) last scene leaves one character, Sylvia, mute for the last 10 minutes. The turning point of the play is completely unbelievable. The puns, some of them tedious to begin with, go on forever, and there's a surprising carelessness about place names. It's definitely prentice work.
On the other hand, the play has the servant Launce and his dog Crab. Launce is played here by the brilliant John Woodvine: if you're old enough, you may remember him as the evil uncle from the sprawling stage production of "Nicholas Nickleby." Launce is dumb as a post, but not so dumb that he can't see that his master, Proteus, is a scoundrel. Proteus is played by Michael Maloney (who did a brilliant turn as the Dauphin in Branagh's "Henry V"); he tries to betray the love interest of his best friend, Valentine, played by Damian Lewis (quite a change from his more recent incarnation on "Homeland"). In fact, one of the pleasures to be had from the series is recognizing the voices of actors who are better-known in other contexts.
The music for all of the Arkangel productions is composed by Dominique Le Gendre. The score sounds like the kind of jazzy, smoky music you'd hear in the background at a candlelit dinner. Usually it works, but the one criticism I have of the production is that his version of "Who is Sylvia?" misses the mark, with an overly complex melody that doesn't quite fit the pace of the lyrics. It's a rare misstep in the series.
If you're going for the Shakespeare highlights, you can give this one a pass. But if you're determined to do the whole canon, it's well worth your while: if nothing else, there's always Crab.
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7 people found this helpful
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
- James
- 05-24-19
Classic Shakespeare
actors were very good. Story was funny and side splitting. A Shakespeare must listen to
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