Two Gentlemen of Verona

The exact date of "The Two Gentlemen of Verona" is unknown, but the comedy is often touted as Shakespeare's earliest play. The framework of the story is heavily borrowed from Portuguese writer Jorge de Montemayer's "Diana Enamorada".

The play opens with Valentine about to embark for Milan to see the world. He chides his best friend Proteus for staying behind because of a girl named Julia. Meanwhile, Julia and her maid Lucetta discuss Proteus. Lucetta tells Julia she thinks Proteus likes her and reveals a letter. Julia's maid refuses to say who it is from although she teases her mistress that it was penned by Proteus. Julia cannot admit that she likes Proteus and rips up the letter only to regret it moments later.

Antonio, Proteus's father, decides to send Proteus to the Duke's court in Milan. Proteus and Julia exchange rings and as tokens of their love for each other. In Milan, Valentine has fallen in love with Silvia, the Duke's daughter. The trouble starts when Proteus arrives at court and promptly falls for Silvia as well. Valentine confides in Proteus that he and Silvia plan to elope. Proteus turns treacherous when he notifies the Duke about the elopement which effects Valentine's banishment from court. An exiled Valentine is accosted by outlaws who demand that he become their king or die. Naturally, Valentine chooses life and kingship. Julia arrives in Milan, disguises herself as the page Sebastian to Proteus, and offers Silvia a ring from Proteus, the very ring she had given him, back in Verona. Silvia's father wishes her to marry Thurio. An idea that terrifies her, Silvia begs her friend, Sir Eglamour, to help her escape and find Valentine. While in the forest, she and Eglamour are taken over by a band of outlaws. Eglamour runs away. The Duke, Thurio, Proteus and Julia as Sebastian have organized a search party for Sylvia.

The last scene of the play is the most controversial for critics and audience members. Proteus gets Sylvia away from the outlaws. He then commands Sylvia to show him some sign of favor for freeing her. When she resists, he tries to rape her but Valentine appears and stops him. Proteus apologizes, and Valentine offers Sylvia up as a token of their friendship. Sebastian faints and his true identity is revealed. Proteus decides he loves Julia best and the Duke decides Valentine is a noble man fit to marry Sylvia. The play ends with all the hearts of the lovers reconciled.

Shakespeare was very taken by the story "Diana Enamorada", but he imbues his play with the theme friendship in addition to the theme of romance. One of the major contrasts in the story is whether friendship trumps romance. In this early play, it does, and the happy ending styled after all-was-forgiven rings false because the swift ending fails to fulfill everything that has been promised earlier to the audience. Proteus's character in the last fifteen minutes of the play, leaves his morals to be questioned and makes us wonder whether the fate of Julia can be truly bliss in the hands of Proteus. There are grave suggestions in this comedy, but Shakespeare had yet to learn the greatest comic relief allows the serious to cast slight shadows here and there as in "Twelfth Night". Even at the start of his career as a dramatist, Shakespeare believed that comedies ended in marriage, and that tragedies began after marriage.

From the middle of the eighteenth century onward, it became common for directors to cut lines in the final scene where Valentine offers Sylvia to Proteus as a sign of forgiveness and friendship. Stanley Wells suggested 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."

In December 1971, Galt MacDermot, John Guare, and Mel Shapiro's rock musical adaptation "The Two Gentlemen of Verona" opened at the St. James Theatre. It ran for 613 productions, and won two Tony Awards, including one for Best Musical. Thurio has a samba in the musical. Producer Roger Elsgood and director Will Richards adapted the play for the radio. They titled it "The Two Gentlemen of Valasna" because it was set in two fictional Indian princely states called Malpur and Valasna, in the weeks leading up to the 1857 Indian Mutiny. Vishvador is meant to be Valentine and Pashminder represents Proteus.