37 Days of Shakespeare, Day 31: The Two Gentlemen of Verona

The Two Gentlemen of Verona, first broadcast December 27th, 1983

• When was it written? Sometime between 1589 and 1593. Some have made the case that it’s his first play, but others say it’s more likely to be his eighth play.
• What’s it about? Valentine and Proteus are best friends in Verona, both in love with women they aren’t allowed to love (Valentine loves Silvia and Proteus loves Julia.) But then Proteus meets Silvia and instantly decides to ditch Julia to pursue Silvia instead, and goes so far as to snitch on Valentine and get him banished to clear a path. In the forest Valentine joins a group of Robin-Hood-esque outlaws. Julia decides to dress as a boy and win Proteus back. Silvia isn’t interested in Proteus, so he considers raping her until Valentine stops him at sword-point. In the end, everybody ends up with who they started with and the friends are reconciled.
• Most famous dialogue: No famous dialogue here.
• Sources: Primarily The Seven Books of the Diana by the Portuguese writer Jorge de Montemayor, with a bit of Thomas Elyot's The Boke Named the Governour
• Interesting fact about the play: Those (in the minority) that conjecture that this was actually Shakespeare’s first play cite as their primary evidence how bad it is. I would argue the opposite: I found this to be very sophisticated, so I doubt it’s his first. It seems like a much more ambitious undertaking than A Comedy of Errors, which is more often listed as his first comedy. Writing about anti-heroes is hard. You generally want to master writing about likeable heroes first. I would argue that, since Proteus is a compelling and complex anti-hero, this is unlikely to be the first.
• Best insult:
• “She is peevish, sullen, froward, proud, disobedient, stubborn, lacking duty”
• “Thou subtle, perjured, false, disloyal man!”
• Worst insult: “Silvia, witness heaven that made her fair, shows Julie but a swarthy Ethiope.” Well that’s problematic.
• Best word: sluggardised, braggardism
• Best production of this play I’ve seen: I’ve never read or seen it before.
• Notable names in the BBC Adaptation: None

How’s the cast?

• They’re wonderful. Tyler Butterworth has very unfortunate 1983 hair that makes him a dead ringer for Shaun Cassidy, but other than that gives a great performance as one of Shakespeare’s most callow anti-heroes, John Hudson shows nice range as Valentine goes on his big personal journey from gentleman to criminal. Tessa Peake-Jones, as is always true in this series, is unconvincing as a boy, but does a great job otherwise. Tony Haygarth is very funny as Proteus’s servant Launce (and the dog playing Launce’s dog is great too) Paul Daneman is a real standout as a worldly wise Duke, about whom I will say more below.

How’s the direction by Don Taylor?

• Excellent. Shakespeare has many perfectly fine plays that are miscategorized as comedies and directors have to strain to squeeze jokes out of them, but this very funny production does not feel strained at all, and makes a convincing case that this is actually a very funny play (despite the possibility of rape at the end, which ends the comedy real quick, but I think that’s the point.) Taylor wanted realistic sets, but when he realized that the BBC couldn’t deliver, he decided to go in a more stylized direction, with aluminum poles for trees, and it works surprisingly well.

Rulebook Casefile: The Power of an Ironic Title

Look at that plot description again, then answer me: Who exactly are the gentlemen here? The one who betrays his friend and then considers raping that friend’s true love? Or the one who goes to live as a robber in the forest? Surely the title is intentionally ironic. Of course, these men are technically gentlemen, since that was merely an accident of birth, but to the degree that behavior can be described as gentlemanly, these guys lack it.

This is a play about how a new lust/infatuation can cause a man to betray not only his previous lady-love but his male best friend as well, which is unfortunately an evergreen topic. Valentine (named after the patron saint of love) and Proteus (a name that means changeable) begins the play with much lyrical talk about true love (as opposed to Launce, speaking in prose, giving a hilariously mercenary account of his own lover’s qualities) but one betrays his love and his friend, and the other proves to be a crook at heart.

The title drips with irony. The word “Gentlemen” might as well be in quotes, and the power of that ironic title adds new layers of meaning to the play.

Storyteller’s Rulebook: When Should Actors Be Allowed to Play Things That Aren’t Necessarily in the Text?

Shakespeare wrote rich texts, densely packed with meaning and overflowing with subtext. But that’s never enough for actors or directors. In production after production, you find actors injecting new meanings into scenes that simply aren’t supported by the text. (I’ve talked before about the urge to turn perfectly innocent scenes into sex scenes.)

But then you also have examples of great actors who push it right to the edge, delivering an unorthodox interpretation that is, in retrospect, justified by the text, but was invisible until the actor (and/or director) dug it out.

This production has a wonderful example. Valentine is illicitly in love with the Duke’s daughter, but so is Proteus. Proteus wants to steal his friend’s girl, so he betrays his friend to the Duke. It would have been easy to stick to the text and have the Duke be entirely appreciative of this warning that his daughter is about to run away with Valentine.

But Paul Daneman as the Duke gives us a lot more than is seemingly on the page. In this version, the Duke sees exactly what’s really going on. He can see what a scoundrel Proteus is and he’s disgusted by it, but has to pretend to be thankful for the tip. It’s an excellent example of playing against the surface text in a way that does not contradict the underlying text at all.

Rulebook Casefile: The Power of Props

Props are one of the most powerful tools any writer can have. I’ve written and made videos about how powerful it can be to invest objects with meaning, and create more meaning every time those objects are exchanged.

And yet, Shakespeare does not do this very much. It’s not uncommon to have whole scenes with no props.

This play, however, is a big exception. It struck me in the first scene, where there’s a lot of business with Proteus’s letter to Julia, that this was uncommon. Later, there is a hilarious scene where Valentine has a rope ladder hidden under his cloak that the Duke contrives to reveal.

Perhaps this is an indication that the play really did come earlier than is commonly supposed. We’ve seen with other early plays that Shakespeare didn’t understand Elizabethan stage conventions yet, sometimes to good effect. Was the tendency in his later plays, which were all-dialogue-no-business, a stage convention at the time but he didn’t grasp it yet? If so, this is a delightful departure.