Customer Reviews

The Two Gentlemen of Verona (Folger Shakespeare Library)

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As with all Shakespeare, this play is very prettily written, even if the language IS archaic enough to give most modern readers a bit of difficulty without a good set of notes. As with most Shakespeare, particularly those Shakespearean plays that deal at least peripherally with romance, the plot is less than ideal. In this case, my objection is not the one I usually have; he actually DOES recognize that love is not a magical, all-encompassing thing that involves being immediately besotted before one even knows the other person's name; Valentine's friendship for Proteus is shown to be stronger than his "love" for Sylvia. OK, fine as far as it goes. Still, the ending scene in which this is revealed is flawed beyond belief by every OTHER action in it.
First of all, Proteus's friendship for Valentine is NOT strong enough to keep him from betraying him in order to try to win Sylvia's love. OK, so Valentine is a better friend, and a better person, than Proteus. That's fair. But Valentine goes from declaring flatly that he can never trust Proteus again once he learns of this, to forgiving him entirely just because he says he's sorry moments later. OK, Valentine is just a sucker for Proteus, and can't stay mad at him no matter what. That makes the character rather weaker and stupider than I think he's supposed to be percieved as, but let that slide. He then yields any interest he has in Sylvia to Proteus for friendship's sake, in spite of the fact that he'd just come upon Proteus trying to rape her. This makes him both an idiot and a worthless lover; it's one thing to count friendship higher than romantic love; it's another to subject your love to rape for friendship's sake. But ignore that; where this scene TRULY becomes intolerably, stupidly unbelievable is that Sylvia says not a peep of objection to this betrayal, and when Proteus winds up back with Julia, Sylvia cheerfully, happily is back with Valentine without so much as a suggestion that she has anything to forgive him for or any reason to think about whether this is a good idea. And Julia, who has been utterly betrayed by Proteus, and seen him not only try to seduce his "best friend's" love, but seen him try to rape her, likewise accepts him back into her life without so much as a hesitation to decide whether this is a good idea or not. All of this would have been dubious but possibly manageable if the ladies had spoken of how betrayed they were, but chosen to forgive their lovers for the sake of love, or some such rot, but to not even acknowledge that they have been badly used but are being generously forgiving simply ruins the play. I realize that this would have been considered less objectionable in Shakespeare's day than it is now, given the status (or lack thereof) of women in that society. I still think it would have been dubious even then, but if not, all that proves is that this play is thoroughly ruined for the modern reader/audience by being totally outdated, not unlike "The Merchant of Venice".

Proteus and Valentine are the gentlemen from the title, two young, wealthy best friends who have different life philosophies. Valentine is all about traveling to Milan to experience life and rack up some cool accomplishments, while Proteus wants to stay at home and adore his love-from-afar Julia. Proteus' dad sends him off to Milan anyway, and the main plot comes from the trouble that arises when Proteus falls in love with Valentine's new sweetheart, Silvia.

I wasn't familiar with this story until recently, so I started scouring YouTube for performances of Two Gentlemen of Verona to get a feel for the mood of the play. It turns out that this play is pretty much Shakespeare's least-performed comedy, and there are no film versions to speak of. This is because it's probably the first play he wrote, and it has a lot of problems with plot and characterization--particularly the sudden about-face that occurs when Proteus becomes a traitor. He lands in Milan and instantly loves Silvia, then decides to betray his best friend Valentine and have him banished from Milan, just so he can have a shot at Silvia. Proteus completely forgets about Julia, his first love who's pining away for him back in Verona.

Some characters are born villains, some achieve villainy, but Proteus really has villainy thrust upon him by the plot, because there has to be a big problem between the the two friends, and Proteus' sudden betrayal is perhaps the quickest way to do this. But he hasn't been set up as an untrustworthy guy, and there aren't any hints that the harmless, lovesick Proteus in Act I, who just wanted to stay at home and write love letters, should become the lustful friend-hating monster of Act IV. His villainy goes so far that he threatens to force himself on Silvia (come on, Shakespeare, this is a comedy!), but Valentine shows up and takes objection. Julia happens to be present in disguise, and she reveals her identity and also berates Proteus for his faithless behavior. And then everyone forgives him. Valentine's banishment is revoked, he and Silvia are reunited, Proteus and Julia fall in love again, and all is abruptly and jarringly right with the world.

This play contains many elements that are used to better advantage in later comedies, but it's hard for me to really like Two Gentlemen when it's this wacky, minus the sweetness of some of the other plays. The Proteus-Julia-Valentine-Silvia quadrangle is very similar to the Leander-Hermia-Demetrius-Helena snarl in A Midsummer Night's Dream, but in the latter case, the crossed-up loves of the couples is funny because it's influenced by a fairy spell and it's all temporary. In this play, Proteus swapping out one girl for another is not funny because it's his own decision, and he gets nasty about it. Then we have a happy ending, of all things, and the guys are best friends again. You have to wonder if the two protagonists are going to hang out together years down the road and Valentine's going to reminisce, "Hey Proteus, remember when you got me banished from court and I became an outlaw while you tried to steal my girl? Good times, man, good times."

The general critical consensus regarding this play is that you have to hope that your actors really ham it up and go for the comedy in their lines, because if they try to play the later scenes with any earnestness, it's troubling.