The Two Gentlemen of Verona is a
comedyComedy as a popular meaning, is any humorous discourse generally intended to amuse, especially in television, film, and stand-up comedy. This must be carefully distinguished from its academic definition, namely the comic theatre, whose Western origins are found in Ancient Greece...
by
William ShakespeareWilliam Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's preeminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
, believed to have been written in 1590 or 1591. It has the smallest cast of any of
Shakespeare's playsWilliam Shakespeare's plays have the reputation of being among the greatest in the English language and in Western literature. Traditionally divided into the genres of tragedy, history, and comedy, they have been translated into every major living language, in addition to being continually...
, and is the first of his plays in which a heroine dresses as a boy. It deals with the themes of friendship and infidelity, the conflict between friendship and love, and the foolish behaviour of people in love. The highlight of the play is considered by some to be Launce, the clownish servant of Proteus, and his dog Crab, to whom "the most scene-stealing non-speaking role in the canon" has been attributed.
Characters
VALENTINE, PROTEUS, the Two Gentlemen
SILVIA, beloved of Valentine
JULIA, beloved of Proteus
DUKE OF MILAN, father to Silvia
LUCETTA, waiting woman to Julia
ANTONIO, father to Proteus
THURIO, a foolish rival to Valentine
EGLAMOUR, agent for Silvia in her escape
SPEED, a clownish servant to Valentine
LAUNCE, the like to Proteus
PANTHINO, servant to Antonio
HOST, of the inn where Julia lodges in Milan
OUTLAWS with Valentine
Servants, Musicians, Lance's dog Crab
Synopsis
The two gentlemen are Valentine and Proteus. In the beginning of the play, Valentine is getting ready to leave
VeronaVerona is a city in Veneto, northern Italy, one of the seven provincial capitals in the region. It is one of the main tourist destinations in north-eastern Italy, thanks to its artistic heritage, several annual fairs, shows and operas, such as the lyrical season in the Arena, the ancient...
to visit
MilanMilan in Italy, is the capital of the region of Lombardia and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while the urban area is the fifth largest in the E.U. with an estimated population of 4.3 million...
to gain life experience. He begs his best friend, Proteus, to come with him, but Proteus is in love with a girl named Julia. At first Valentine chides Proteus for concentrating more on matters of love than matters of the mind, but after realizing that Proteus cannot be dissuaded and is deeply in love with Julia, he goes on alone.
Meanwhile, Julia is discussing Proteus with her maid, Lucetta. Lucetta reveals to Julia that she finds Proteus very fine - "Of many good, I think him best" - and tells Julia that she thinks Proteus is fond of her. Julia, embarrassed to admit she likes him, continues fishing until Lucetta brings out a letter. She will not say who gave it to her, but teases Julia that it was Valentine's servant, Speed, who brought it from Proteus. Julia, still unwilling to reveal her love in front of Lucetta, angrily tears up the letter, and then, having sent Lucetta away, kisses the fragments, and tries to piece them together.
Meanwhile, Proteus' father, Antonio, has decided that like Valentine, Proteus should also travel so as to broaden his horizons. He asks the advice of his servant, Panthino, who suggests that Antonio send Proteus to Milan to join Valentine. Antonio agrees and informs the dismayed Proteus that he must leave the next day. In a tearful goodbye with his beloved, Julia, Proteus swears eternal love. The two exchange rings and vows and Proteus promises to return as soon as he can.
As soon as he arrives in Milan, Proteus finds Valentine in love with Silvia, the daughter of the Duke. Despite his love for Julia, Proteus falls instantly in love with Silvia and vows to do everything he can to ensure he win her, even to the point of betraying Valentine. In the meantime, Valentine takes Proteus into his confidence, explaining to him that the Duke wants Silvia to marry the foppish but wealthy Thurio, even though she is in love with Valentine. To ensure that Silvia and Valentine cannot be together, the Duke has locked her in a tower. Valentine however, plans to go to her tower with a corded ladder, and together they plan to flee Milan. Upon hearing this, Proteus recognises his chance to remove Valentine from the equation, leaving the way open for him to seduce Silvia. He betrays Valentine to the Duke, telling him that his daughter and Valentine plan to elope. The Duke then catches and banishes Valentine.
While wandering outside of Milan, Valentine runs afoul of a band of outlaws. They tell him that they, too, were once gentlemen and were banished. Valentine lies to them, saying he was banished because he killed a man in a fair fight, and the outlaws decide to make him their king. Valentine is confused at first, but when they tell him that he must become their king or die, the decision becomes much clearer.
While Proteus is attempting to win Silvia over, back in Verona, Julia decides to join her lover and travels to Milan dressed as a boy. She convinces Lucetta to dress her in boy's clothes and help her fix her hair so she will not be harmed on the journey. Lucetta warns her that Proteus may have forgotten her, but Julia is convinced that that is impossible and that Proteus could love her and only her, and she champions his fidelity. Lucetta however remains skeptical.
Once in Milan, Julia quickly discovers Proteus' love for Silvia, watching him attempt to serenade her. She then becomes his page - a youth named Sebastian - until she can decide upon a course of action. At first, she expects to hate Silvia because she is the object of Proteus' newfound affections, but when sent on an errand from Proteus to deliver to Silvia a letter and the same ring that Julia herself gave to him at their parting, Julia discovers that Silvia scorns Proteus' affections and is disgusted that he would forget about Julia for her. Instead, Silvia is deeply mourning the loss of Valentine (whom Proteus has told her is rumoured dead). Therefore, Julia is confused and cannot decide what to do or how to treat Silvia. She wonders what Proteus likes about Silvia and what she can do about it, eventually deciding not to chide Silvia, as Silvia felt pity for Julia's cause.
Meanwhile, not convinced that Valentine is dead, Silvia has decided to flee the city with the help of Eglamour, a former suitor to Julia. They escape into the forest, but they are confronted by the outlaws. Eglamour flees at the first sign of trouble, and Silvia is taken captive. The outlaws bring her to their leader (Valentine), but on the way, they encounter Proteus and Julia (still disguised as Sebastian). Proteus frees Silvia, and then pursues her deeper into the forest. He catches up to her and, secretly observed by Valentine, attempts to convince her that he loves her. She refuses to return his affections, and, furious and mad with desire, he insinuates that he will rape her ("I'll force thee yield to my desire").
At this point, Valentine intervenes, and denounces Proteus. Horrified at what has happened, Proteus vows that the hate Valentine feels for him is nothing compared to the hate he feels for himself. Convinced that Proteus' repentance is genuine, Valentine forgives him, and then seems to 'offer' Silvia to him in the name of friendship. Overwhelmed, Julia faints, revealing her true identity. Upon seeing her, Proteus suddenly remembers his love for her and vows fidelity to her once again. By this stage, the Duke and Thurio have arrived in the forest, and Thurio reminds Valentine that Silvia is his. Valentine warns Thurio that if he makes one move towards her, he will kill him. Terrified, Thurio quickly denounces Silvia, saying no woman is worth dying for, and the Duke, impressed by Valentine's actions, approves his and Silvia's love, and vows to allow them to marry. The play ends with the two couples happily unified, and the Duke pardons the outlaws, telling them they may return to Milan.
In the comic subplot, even Proteus’ servant Lance finds romance, whereupon he devises a comic résumé of the attributes of a lower-class girl. Ultimately, in consultation with Speed, he decides he will marry her because she has "more wealth than faults."
Sources
In writing
The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Shakespeare drew on a Spanish prose romance
Diana Enamorada by the Portuguese writer
Jorge de MontemayorJorge de Montemayor was a Portuguese novelist and poet, who wrote almost exclusively in Spanish.-Biography:...
. This work was published in 1559, was translated into French in 1578, and was published in English in 1598, though the translation was made several years earlier. It is believed that Shakespeare could have read the story in French, or in an unpublished English version, or could have learned of it from an anonymous English play,
The History of Felix and Philiomena, which may (or may not) have been based on
Diana, and which was performed at court by the Queen's Men on 3 January 1585.
The History of Felix and Philiomena is now lost.
In the second book of
Diana Enamorada, Don Felix loves Felismena, and sends her a letter. Like Julia, Felismena pretends to reject the letter, and to be annoyed with her maid. Like Proteus, Felix is sent away by his father, and is followed by Felismena, who, disguised as a boy, becomes his page, and has the pain of learning of his new love for Celia, and of being sent to Celia as a messenger for Felix. The two lovers are reconciled at the end, after a combat in a wood, though Celia, having no counterpart to Valentine (or to Sebastian in
Twelfth Night), falls in love with the supposed page, and dies of grief.
Another major influence on Shakespeare was the story of the intimate friendship of Titus and Gisippus as told in
Thomas ElyotSir Thomas Elyot , was an English diplomat and scholar.Thomas was the child of Sir Richard Elyot's first marriage with Alice De la Mare, but neither the date nor place of his birth is accurately known...
's
The Governor in 1531 (the same story is told in
The DecameronThe Decameron is a collection of 100 novellas by Italian author Giovanni Boccaccio, probably begun in 1350 and finished in 1353. It is a medieval allegorical work best known for its bawdy tales of love, appearing in all its possibilities from the erotic to the tragic...
by
BaccaccioGiovanni Boccaccio was an Italian author and poet, a friend, student, and correspondent of Petrarch, an important Renaissance humanist and the author of a number of notable works including the Decameron, On Famous Women, and his poetry in the Italian vernacular...
, but verbal similarities between
The Two Gentlemen and
The Governor suggest it was Elyot's work Shakespeare used, not Boccaccio’s). In this story, Titus and Gisippus are inseparable until Gisippus falls in love. He introduces the woman to Titus, but Titus is overcome with jealousy, and vows to seduce her. Upon hearing of Titus' plan, Gisippus arranges for them to changes places on the wedding night, thus placing their friendship above his love for the woman (as Valentine seems to do at the end of
The Two Gentlemen).
Also important to Shakespeare in the composition of the play was
John LylyJohn Lyly was an English writer, best known for his books Euphues,The Anatomy of Wit and Euphues and His England. Lyly's linguistic style, originating in his first books, is known as Euphuism.-Biography:He was born in Kent in 1553 or 1554...
's
Eupheus, published in 1578. Like
The Governor,
Eupheus presents two close friends who are inseparable until a woman comes between them, and, like both
The Governor and
The Two Gentlemen, the story concludes with one friend sacrificing the woman so as to save the friendship. However, as Geoffrey Bullough argues "Shakespeare's debt to Lyly was probably one of technique more than matter." Lyly's
Midas may also have influenced the scene where Launce and Speed run through the milkmaid's virtues and defects, as it contains a very similar scene between Lucio and Petulus.
Other minor sources include Arthur Brooke's narrative poem
The Tragical History of Romeus and JulietThe Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet is a narrative poem, first published in 1562 by Arthur Brooke, who is reported to have translated it from an Italian novella by Matteo Bandello...
. Obviously Shakespeare's source for
Romeo and JulietRomeo and Juliet is a tragedy written early in the career of playwright William Shakespeare about two young "star-cross'd lovers" whose untimely deaths ultimately unite their feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's most popular plays during his lifetime and, along with Hamlet and Macbeth, is...
, it features a character called Friar Laurence, as does
The Two Gentlemen, and a scene where a young man attempts to outwit his lover's father by means of a corded ladder (as Valentine does in
The Two Gentlemen).
Philip SidneySir Philip Sidney became one of the Elizabethan Age's most prominent figures. Famous in his day in England as a poet, courtier and soldier, he remains known as the author of Astrophel and Stella , The Defence of Poetry Sir Philip Sidney (30 November 1554 – 17 October 1586) became one of the...
's
ArcadiaThe Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia, also known simply as the Arcadia or the Old Arcadia, is a long prose work by Sir Philip Sidney written towards the end of the sixteenth century, and later published in several versions. It is Sidney's most ambitious literary work, by far, and as significant in...
may also have influenced Shakespeare insofar as it contains a character who follows her betrothed, dressed as his page, and later on, one of the main characters becomes captain of a group of
HelotsThe helots were an unfree population group that formed the main population of Laconia and the whole of Messenia . Their exact status was already disputed in Antiquity: according to Critias, they were "especially slaves" whereas to Pollux, they occupied a status "between free men and slaves"...
.
Date and Text
The date of the creation of
The Two Gentlemen of Verona is unknown, but it is generally believed to have been one of Shakespeare's earliest works. The first evidence of its existence is in a list of Shakespeare's plays in
Francis MeresFrancis Meres was an English churchman and author.He was born at Kirton in the Holland division of Lincolnshire in 1565. He was educated at Pembroke College, Cambridge, where he received a B.A. in 1587 and an M.A. in 1591. Two years later he was incorporated an M.A. of Oxford...
's
Palladis Tamia, published in 1598, but it is thought to have been written in the early 1590s.
It has been suggested that
The Two Gentlemen may have been Shakespeare's first work for the stage (it is placed first in the
Oxford ShakespeareThe Oxford Shakespeare is a common term for the range of editions of William Shakespeare's works produced by Oxford University Press. The Oxford Shakespeare is produced under the general editorship of Stanley Wells and Gary Taylor.-The Complete Works:...
Complete Works of 1986), as the scenes involving more than, at most, four characters, "betray an uncertainty of technique suggestive of inexperience." It has also been suggested that the handling of the final scene, in which the faithful lover seemingly offers his beloved to the man who had attempted to rape her, as a token of his forgiveness, is a sign of Shakespeare's lack of maturity as a dramatist.
In his 2008 edition of the play for the
Oxford Shakespeare, Roger Warren argues that the play is the oldest surviving piece of Shakespearian literature, suggesting a date of composition as somewhere between 1587 and 1591. He hypothesises that the play was perhaps written before Shakespeare came to London, with an idea towards using the famous comic actor
Richard TarltonRichard Tarlton , an English actor, was the most famous clown of his era.He was born in Condover, Shropshire. Firm information on his early life is scarce; traditions maintain that he started out as either a London apprentice, or a swineherd in Shropshire; and it is not impossible that he was both...
in the role of Launce (this theory stems from the fact that Tarlton had performed several extremely popular and well known scenes with dogs). However, Tarlton died in September 1588, and Warren notes several passages in
The Two Gentlemen which seem to borrow from John Lyly's
Midas, which wasn't written until at least late-1589. As such, Warren acknowledges that 1590/1591 is most likely the correct date of composition.
The play was not printed until 1623, when it appeared in the
First FolioMr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies is the 1623 published collection of William Shakespeare's plays. Modern scholars commonly refer to it as the First Folio....
of Shakespeare's plays.
Love and friendship
A major theme of the play is the contest between
friendshipFriendship is the cooperative and supportive relationship between two or more people. In this sense, the term connotes a relationship which involves mutual knowledge, esteem, affection, and respect along with a degree of rendering service to friends in times of need or crisis...
and
loveLove is any of a number of emotions and experiences related to a sense of strong affection and attachment. The word love can refer to a variety of different feelings, states, and attitudes, ranging from generic pleasure to intense interpersonal attraction...
: that is, the question of whether the relationship between two male friends is more important than that between lovers, encapsulated by Proteus' rhetorical question at 5.4.54; "In love/Who respects friend?". This question "exposes the raw nerve at the heart of the central relationships, the dark reality lurking beneath the wit and lyricism with which the play has in general presented lovers' behaviour". In the program notes for
John BartonJohn Bernard Adie Barton CBE is a theatrical director. He is the son of Sir Harold Montagu and Lady Joyce Barton. He married Anne Righter, a university lecturer, in 1968....
's 1981 RSC production, Anne Barton, his wife, wrote that the central theme of the play was "how to bring love and friendship into a constructive and mutually enhancing relationship." This is a common theme in
Renaissance literatureRenaissance Literature refers to the period in European literature, which began in Italy during the 15th century and spread around Europe through the 17th century...
, since some aspects of the culture of the time celebrated friendship as the more important relationship (because it is pure and unconcerned with sexual attraction), and contended that they could not co-exist. This could go someway to help explain the bizarre sequence, by modern Western European standards, in which Valentine seems to 'give' Silvia to Proteus out of friendship, without even asking her. Modern scholarship however is divided about Valentine's actions at the end of the play, with some arguing that he does not give Silvia to Proteus at all. The ambiguity lies in the line "All that was mine in Silvia I give to thee." Many critics interpret this to mean that Valentine is indeed handing Silvia over to her would-be rapist, but another school of thought suggests that Valentine simply means "I will love you [Proteus] with as much love as I love Silvia," and thus reconciling the dichotomy of friendship and love as depicted elsewhere in the play. In his 2008
Oxford Shakespeare edition of the play, Roger Warren argues for this latter meaning, citing
Robin PhillipsRobin Phillips is an English actor and director.Phillips was born in Haslemere, Surrey, the son of EllenAnne and James William Phillips. He trained at the Bristol Old Vic and worked as an actor and director for many years in the United Kingdom, finishing as Artistic Director at the Greenwich...
'
RSCThe Royal Shakespeare Company is a major British theatre company. Located primarily at Stratford-upon-Avon, with bases also in London and Newcastle upon Tyne, it is one of the United Kingdom's two most prominent publicly-funded theatre companies, alongside the Royal National Theatre.-The early...
production of the play at
Stratford-upon-AvonThe Royal Shakespeare Theatre is a large national theatre owned by the Royal Shakespeare Company dedicated to the British playwright and poet William Shakespeare. It is located in the town of, Stratford-upon-Avon - Shakespeare's birthplace - in the English Midlands, beside the River Avon...
in 1970, where Valentine kisses Silvia, makes his offer and then kisses Proteus. Another production cited by Warren is
Edward HallEdward Hall is an English theatre director and an associate director at The National Theatre. Hall is known for directing Rose Rage, a stage adaptation of Shakespeare's three Henry VI plays. He also runs an all-male Shakespeare company, Propeller.-Career:He began his professional career as a...
's staging in 1998, at the
Swan TheatreThe Swan Theatre is a theatre belonging to the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon, England. It is built on to the side of the larger Royal Shakespeare Theatre, occupying the Victorian Gothic structure that formerly housed the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre that preceded the RST but was...
. In Hall's version of the scene, after Valentine says the controversial line, Silvia approaches him and takes him by the hand. They remain holding hands for the rest of the play, clearly suggesting that Valentine has not 'given' her away. Warren also mentions Leon Rubin's 1984 Ontario production (where the controversial line was altered to "All my love to Silvia I also give to thee"),
David ThackerDavid Thacker is an English award-winning theatre director.David Thacker is currently the Artistic Director at the [Octagon Theatre Bolton]http://www.octagonbolton.co.uk...
's 1991 Swan Theatre production, and the
BBC ShakespeareThe BBC Television Shakespeare was a set of television adaptations of the plays of Shakespeare, produced by the BBC between 1978 and 1985. It was a project completed by corporations in the United Kingdom and the United States.-Production:...
television adaptation as supporting the theory that Valentine is not giving Silvia away, but is simply promising to love Proteus as much as he loves Silvia. If one accepts this school of thought, that Valentine is not giving Silvia away, then the conclusion of the play can be read as a final triumphant reconciliation between friendship and love; Valentine intends to love his friend as much as he does his betrothed. Love and friendship are shown to be co-existent, not exclusive.
Foolishness of lovers
Another major theme is the foolishness of lovers, what Roger Warren refers to as "mockery of the absurdity of conventional lovers' behaviour". Valentine for example, is introduced into the play mocking the excesses of love ("To be in love, where scorn is bought with groans/Coy looks with heart-sore sighs, one fading moment's mirth/With twenty watchful, weary, tedious nights"), yet later, he becomes as much a prisoner of love as Proteus ("For in revenge of my contempt for love/Love hath chased sleep from my enthrall'd eyes/And made them watchers of my own heart's sorrow). The majority of the cynicism as regards conventional lovers however comes from Launce and Speed, who serve as foils for Proteus and Valentine. Several times in the play, after either Valentine or Proteus has made a grandiose speech about love, Shakespeare introduces either Launce or Speed, whose speeches undercut what has just been heard. This is achieved in several ways. Most obviously, Valentine and Proteus speak in
blank verseBlank verse is a type of poetry, distinguished by having a regular meter, but no rhyme. In English, the meter most commonly used with blank verse has been iambic pentameter ....
, but Launce and Speed (for the most part) in prose. Secondly, the actual content of the speeches serve to illustrate the pompousness of Valentine and Proteus' exalted ideas. This is most apparent in Act 3, Scene 1. Valentine has just given a lengthy speech lamenting his banishment and musing on how he can possibly survive without Silvia ("Unless I be with Silvia in the night/There is no music in the nightingale./Unless I look on Silvia in the day/There is no day for me to look upon"). However, when Launce enters only a few lines later, he announces that he too is in love, and proceeds to outline, along with Speed, all of his betrothed’s positives ("She brews good ale"; "She can knit"; "She can wash and scour") and negatives ("She hath a sweet mouth"; "She doth talk in her sleep"; "She is slow in words"). After weighing his options, Launce decides that the woman's most important quality is that "she hath more hair than wit, and more faults than hairs, and more wealth than faults". He announces that her wealth "makes the faults gracious", and chooses for that reason to wed her. This purely materialistic reasoning is in stark contrast to the spiritual love espoused by Valentine earlier in the scene.
Inconstancy
A third major theme is inconstancy, particularly as manifested in Proteus, whose very name hints at his changeable mind (in
OvidPublius Ovidius Naso , known as Ovid in the English-speaking world, was a Roman poet who wrote about love, seduction, and mythological transformation....
's
Metamorphoses,
ProteusIn Greek mythology, Proteus is an early sea-god, one of several deities whom Homer calls the "Old Man of the Sea", whose name suggests the "first", as protogonos is the "primordial" or the "firstborn". He became the son of Poseidon in the Olympian theogony In Greek mythology, Proteus (Πρωτεύς) is...
is a sea-god forever changing its shape). At the start of the play, Proteus has only eyes for Julia. However upon meeting Silvia, he immediately falls in love her (although he has no idea why). He then finds himself drawn to the page Sebastian (Julia in disguise) whilst still trying to woo Silvia, and at the end of the play, he announces that Silvia is no better than Julia and vows he now loves Julia again.
Performance
There is no record of a performance in Shakespeare's era, down to the closing of the theatres in 1642, although due to its inclusion in Francis Meres's
Palladis Tamia in 1598, we know it was certainly performed during Shakespeare's lifetime. The earliest known performance occurred at
Drury LaneThe Theatre Royal, Drury Lane is a West End theatre in Covent Garden, in the City of Westminster, a borough of London. The building faces Catherine Street and backs onto Drury Lane. The building standing today is the most recent in a line of four theatres at the same location dating back to 1663,...
in 1762. However, this production was of a version of the play rewritten by Benjamin Victor which brought all the Verona scenes together (thus avoiding Shakespeare's alternation between Verona and Milan), removed Valentine's 'gift' of Silvia to Proteus, and increased the roles of Launce and Crab. The earliest known performance of the straight Shakespearean text was at
Covent GardenThe Royal Opera House is an opera house and major performing arts venue in the London district of Covent Garden. The large building is often referred to as simply "Covent Garden", after a previous use of the site of the opera house's original construction in 1732. It is the home of The Royal...
in 1784, although the Victor rewrite continued to be staged up to 1895. Additionally,
Frederic ReynoldsFrederic Reynolds was a British playwright and theatrical producer in the later eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries....
staged an operatic version in 1821.
From the middle of the eighteenth century, even if staging Shakespeare’s original play (as opposed to Victor's rewrite) it was common for directors to cut the lines in the final scene where Valentine seems to offer Silvia to Proteus, who has just attempted to rape her, as a sign of his forgiveness and friendship. This practice prevailed until
William Charles MacreadyWilliam Charles Macready was an English actor.-Life:He was born in London, and educated at Rugby.It was his intention to go up to Oxford, but in 1809 the embarrassed affairs of his father, the lessee of several provincial theatres, called him to share the responsibilities of theatrical management...
reintroduced the lines in 1841, although they were removed again as late as 1952, in
Denis CareyDenis Carey was a British actor who appeared in many film and television roles.Some of Carey's notable appearances include Dennis Potter's 1968 television series A Beast with Two Backs, Elizabeth R, I, Claudius and The Barchester Chronicles...
's production at the
Bristol Old VicThe Bristol Old Vic is a theatre company based at the Theatre Royal, King Street, in Bristol, England. The theatre complex includes the 1766 Theatre Royal, which claims to be the oldest continually-operating theatre in England, along with a 1970s studio theatre , offices and backstage facilities...
.
The play has been produced sporadically, often with little success, in the English-speaking world; although it has proved more popular in Europe. Indeed, there have been only a handful of major English speaking productions worth noting. For example, the
Old VicThe Old Vic is a theatre located just south-east of Waterloo Station in London on the corner of The Cut and Waterloo Road. Established in 1818 as the Royal Coburg Theatre, it was taken over by Emma Cons in 1880 when it was known formally as the Royal Victoria Hall. In 1898, a niece of Cons, Lilian...
staged the play in 1957, directed by
Michael LanghamMichael Langham is a British actor and director, who has spent much of his career living and working in Canada and the United States. He studied law at the University of London before enlisting in the British Army in 1939...
. In this production, set in late nineteenth century Italy and grounded very much in high
RomanticismRomanticism is a complex artistic, literary, and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Western Europe, and gained strength during the Industrial Revolution...
, Proteus threatens to kill himself with a pistol at the end of the play, prompting Valentine's hasty offer of Silvia. Another major production was Peter Hall's at Stratford-upon-Avon in 1960, which was set in a late
medievalThe Middle Ages of European history is a period of European history covering roughly a millennium in the 5th century through 16th centuries. More specific starting and ending points are sometimes adopted by scholars to suit their respective specializations or current focus...
milieu. Robin Phillips' production at Stratford in 1970 starred
Helen MirrenDame Helen Mirren, DBE is an English actor. She has won an Academy Award, four SAG Awards, four BAFTAs, three Golden Globes and four Emmy Awards during her career.-Family:...
as Julia,
Patrick StewartPatrick Hewes Stewart, OBE is an English film, television and stage actor. He has had a distinguished career in theatre for nearly fifty years, including performances as various characters in Shakespearean productions...
as Launce and
Ian RichardsonIan William Richardson CBE was a Scottish actor best known for his portrayal of the Machiavellian Tory politician, Francis Urquhart, in the BBC's House of Cards trilogy. He was also as a leading Shakespearian stage actor...
as Proteus, and tended to concentrate on the issues of friendship and treachery. The Royal Shakespeare Company staged the play at Stratford in 1981. Under the direction of John Barton, with
Peter LandPeter Land is a New Zealand actor and singer known for his classical acting with the Royal National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company as well as appearances in many musicals.-Early life:...
as Proteus and
Peter ChelsomPeter Chelsom is a British actor and film director. He has directed among others such films as Shall We Dance? and Hannah Montana: The MovieChelsom studied at the Central School of Drama in London...
as Valentine, this production saw the actors not involved in the current on-stage scene sit at the front of the stage and watch the performance. Leon Rubin directed another major performance at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in
OntarioOntario is a province located in east-central Canada, the largest by population and second largest, after Quebec, in total area. Ontario is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Manitoba to the west and Quebec to the east, and 5 U.S...
, Canada in 1984, where the actors were dressed in modern clothes and contemporary pop music was featured within the play (for example, the outlaws are portrayed as an anarchic rock group). A 1991 production at the Swan Theatre in Stratford saw director David Thacker use an on-stage live band for the duration of the play, playing music from the 1930s, such as
Cole PorterCole Albert Porter was an American composer and songwriter. His works include the musical comedies Kiss Me, Kate, Fifty Million Frenchmen, DuBarry Was a Lady and Anything Goes, as well as songs like "Night and Day", "I Get a Kick out of You", "Well, Did You Evah!" and "I've Got You Under My Skin"...
and
George GershwinGeorge Gershwin was an American composer and pianist. Gershwin's compositions spanned both popular and classical genres, and his most popular melodies are universally familiar....
. Another production took place at the Swan in 1998, under the direction of Edward Hall, which set the play in a grimy unnamed contemporary city where material obsession was all-encompassing. Another performance worth noting occurred at Stratford in 2006. A professional acting company from Brazil, named Nós do Morro gave a single performance of the play during the RSC's presentation of the
Complete Works. This production was spoken in Portuguese, with the original English text projected as
surtitlesSurtitles, also known as supertitles, are translated or transcribed lyrics/dialogue projected above a stage or displayed on a screen, commonly used in opera or other musical performances. The word "surtitle" comes from the French language "sur", meaning "over" or "on", and the English language word...
onto the back of the stage. It also featured two 17 years olds in the roles of Valentine and Proteus (usually, actors in their 20s are cast), and Crab was played not by a dog, but by a human actor. In 2009,
Joe DowlingJoe Dowling is the Artistic Director for the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is also well known for his work as Artistic Director of the Abbey Theatre in Ireland, and has directed plays in all the major theatres in Ireland as well as theatres in London, New York, Washington D.C.,...
directed the play at the
Guthrie TheaterThe Guthrie Theater is a center for theater performance, production, education, and professional training in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is the result of the desire of Sir Tyrone Guthrie, Oliver Rea, and Peter Zeisler to create a resident acting company that would produce and perform the classics in...
as a 1955 live television production, with large black-and-white monitors set on either side of the stage, and cameras feeding the action to them. Additionally, period advertisements appeared both before the show and during the intermission. The actors spoke the original dialog, but wore modern clothing and used 1950s-era sets.
Rock and rollRock and roll is a genre of popular music that evolved in the United States after World War II in the late 1940s, from a combination of the rhythms of the blues, from the African American culture, and from America's country music and gospel music scenes...
music and dance sequences were occasionally mixed with the action.
Perhaps with some of these earlier productions in mind,
Stanley WellsStanley William Wells, CBE, is a Shakespeare scholar and Chairman of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.Wells took his first degree at University College, London, and was awarded an honorary DLitt by the University of Warwick in 2008...
suggests that the play "has succeeded best when subjected to adaptation, increasing its musical content, adjusting the emphasis of the last scene so as to reduce the shock of Valentine's donation of Silvia to Proteus, and updating the setting.
Theatrical
Galt MacDermotGalt MacDermot is a Canadian composer, pianist and writer of musical theatre. He won a Grammy Award for the song "African Waltz" in 1960. His most successful musicals have been Hair and Two Gentlemen of Verona...
,
John GuareJohn Guare is an American playwright. He is best known as the author of The House of Blue Leaves, Six Degrees of Separation, and Landscape of the Body...
and
Mel ShapiroMel Shapiro is an American theatre director and writer, college professor, and author.Trained at Carnegie-Mellon University, Shapiro began his professional directing career at Arena Stage in Washington; he directed at a series of regional theaters, including the Guthrie in Minneapolis, before...
adapted the show into a musical that opened on December 1, 1971 and closed May 20, 1973.
Stuart DraperStuart B Draper is an British actor, playwright and theatre director. He attended the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art and graduated from Durham University, and teaches at the South London Theatre.-As playwright:...
adapted the play for a
gayThe term gay was originally used, until well into the mid-20th century, primarily to refer to feelings of being "carefree", "happy", or "bright and showy"; it had also come to acquire some connotations of "immorality" as early as 1637....
version called
Two Gentlemen of Verona which played at the
Greenwich PlayhouseThe Greenwich Playhouse in the central Greenwich district of the London Borough of Greenwich is an eighty-four seat studio theatre which opened in 1990. It is situated above and has its entrance within, the St. Christopher’s Inn Pub...
in
New York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States, and the center of the New York metropolitan area, which is among the most populous urban areas in the world. A leading global city, New York exerts a powerful influence over worldwide commerce, finance, culture, fashion and entertainment...
in 2004.
Producer Roger Elsgood and director Willi Richards adapted it as a
radio playRadio Drama is a form of audio storytelling broadcast on radio. With no visual component, radio drama depends on dialogue, music and sound effects to help the listener imagine the story....
called
The Two Gentlemen of Valasna, setting it in two fictional Indian princely states called Malpur and Valasna, in the weeks leading up to the
Indian MutinyThe Indian Rebellion of 1857 began as a mutiny of sepoys of the British East India Company's army on 10 May, 1857, in the town of Meerut, and soon erupted into other mutinies and civilian rebellions largely in the upper Gangetic plain and central India, with the major hostilities confined to...
of 1857 - this version was first broadcast on
BBC Radio 3BBC Radio 3 is a national radio station operated by the BBC within the United Kingdom. Its output centres on classical music, but jazz, world music, drama and the arts also feature. The station is the world’s most significant commissioner of new music, and its New Generation Artists scheme...
on 29 July 2007. It was recorded on location in Maharashtra, India earlier in 2007 with this cast drawn from the
BollywoodBollywood is the informal term popularly used for the Hindi-language film industry based in Mumbai, India. The term is often incorrectly used to refer to the whole of Indian cinema; it is only a part of the Indian film industry. Bollywood is the largest film producer in India and one of the...
, Indian television and the Mumbai English-speaking theatre traditions:
- Vishvadev / Valentine - Nadir Khan
- Parminder / Proteus - Arghya Lahiri
- Syoni / Sylvia - Anu Menon
- Jumaana / Julia (Servi = Sebastian) - Avantika Akerkar
- The Maharaja / Duke of Milan - Sohrab Ardishir
- Thaqib / Thurio - Zafar Karachiwalla
Zafar Karachiwala is an Indian actor who starred in the television programme Hip Hip Hurray .-Films:* zakhm * mansrover as gearge* chai pani etc. as satya kumar...
- Sparsh / Speed - Kunaal Roy Kapoor
- Lehk / Launce - Joy Sengupta
- Lavanya / Lucetta - Suchitra Pillai
- Babu / Host - Farid Currim
- Arabinder. / Antonio - Jayant Kripalani
Jayant Kripalani is an actor, director and trainer. He graduated from Jadavpur University with a degree in English Literature. He has worked at JWT, Grant Kenyon & Eckhardt and as Senior Creative Director with RKSwamy BBDO. He was one of the first small screen stars in India featuring in the 1980s...
- Pramathesh / Panthino and Ekanjeet / Eglamour - Vikrant Chaturvedi
- The Dacoits / outlaws - Advait Zen Hazarat, Siddhant Pinto and Ali Fazal
Besides the new character names, some other substitutions suitable to the new setting (eg "by Ran" for "by Jove", "Vishnu's shrine for "the north gate", "the mighty gods' wrath's appeased" for "the Eternal's wrath's appeas'd", sahiba for lady, sahib for sir, and sari for robe), and the addition of some Indian dialogue, the production used Shakespeare's text.
Television
The play was screened as a TV movie in Germany in 1964 under the title
Zwei herren aus Verona. Two years later, a different TV adaptation was screened, under the title
Die zwei herren aus Verona
The play was also adapted for the
BBC Shakespeare series in 1983. Directed by
Don TaylorDonald Victor Taylor was an English writer, director and producer, active across theatre, radio and television for over forty years...
, it starred
Tyler ButterworthTyler Butterworth is an English actor, who has appeared in Rumpole Of The Bailey, Bergerac, Last of the Summer Wine, The Bill, The Darling Buds of May, Hetty Wainthropp Investigates and Osborne in the ITV sitcom Fiddlers Three...
as Proteus,
John HudsonJohn Hudson may refer to:* John Hudson , former NFL player* John Hudson , former American basketball player* John Hudson , British actor...
as Valentine,
Tessa Peake-JonesTessa Peake-Jones is an English actress. She is most famous for her role as Raquel in the television comedy series Only Fools and Horses.Tessa also had a co - starring role in the 1999 TV series "Births, Marriages, and Deaths." She has also appeared in the television series, The Demon Headmaster,...
as Julia and Joanne Pearce as Silvia. For the most part, the
BBC Shakespeare adaptation is word-for-word taken from the First Folio, with only some very minor and inconsequential differences. For example, omitted lines include the Duke's "Knowing that tender youth is soon suggested" (3.1.34), and Julia's "Her eyes are grey as glass, and so are mine" (4.4.189). Other differences include a slightly different opening scene to that indicated in the text. Whereas the play seems to open with Valentine and Proteus in mid-conversation, the adaptation begins with Mercatio and Eglamour attempting to formally woo Julia; Mercatio by showing her a coffer overflowing with gold coins, Eglamour by displaying a parchment detailing his family history. However, there is no dialogue in this scene, and the first words spoken are the same as in the text ("Cease to persuade my loving Proteus"). Eglamour is also present in the final scene, albeit once again without any dialogue, and, additionally, the capture of Silvia and the flight of Eglamour is seen, as opposed to merely being described.
The 2000, Season 4 episode of
Dawson's CreekDawson's Creek is an American primetime television drama which initially aired from January 20, 1998, to May 14, 2003, on The WB Television Network. The lead production company was Sony Pictures Television. The show was set in the fictional town of Capeside, Massachusetts and in Boston,...
entitled "The Two Gentlemen of Capeside" was taken lightly from the theme of the play. Dawson and Pacey, best friends on the show, have been driven apart over their love for the same woman. The play is referenced early in the episode as the characters are reading it for their English class.
External links