“Love is your master, for he masters you!”: Two Gentlemen of Verona
Explore one of Shakespeare’s very first comedies — and the next virtual play reading in our Shakespeare NOW series
William Shakespeare’s Two Gentlemen of Verona is the next reading in Lantern Theater Company’s new Shakespeare NOW program. The reading is part of Lantern Anywhere, our new series of virtual artistic programming to enlighten and entertain you during this difficult time when we cannot come together in our theater.
Two Gentlemen of Verona is a comedy that centers on two pairs of lovers: Proteus and Julia, and Valentine and Silvia. When the play begins, Valentine leaves Verona for Milan while his best friend Proteus stays behind to woo Julia. Just as she writes Proteus that she returns his love, he too is sent to Milan. Julia follows in secret and in disguise, and though Proteus and Valentine are reunited in Milan, they are soon at odds over the love of Silvia. This is a comedy about love and friendship, in all their constancy and fickleness.
Two Gentlemen of Verona is one of Shakespeare’s earliest comedies. While most of his plays cannot be pinned to specific years, we know that it was one of his first works, and some scholars go so far as to claim it as his very first play. It is also one of his most narrowly focused: Two Gentlemen of Verona has the smallest named cast of characters of any Shakespeare play.
Shakespeare’s main source was probably The Seven Books of the Diana (or in the original Spanish: Los siete libros de la Diana), a pastoral romance by the Portuguese author Jorge de Montemayor published in 1559. The book was an enormous success in the 16th century, and inspired a number of pastoral plays exploring love in Shakespeare’s time.
Among the other sources from which Shakespeare drew minor inspiration was a poem by Arthur Brooke called The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet — the key source for a much more famous play Shakespeare was soon to write.
In drawing from the pastoral The Seven Books of the Diana so heavily in this very early play, Shakespeare introduces certain tropes that will continue to appear throughout his career. One of the chief tropes is the escape to the forest, where wrongs are set right — at least in comedy. This is a construction Shakespeare will employ in plays like A Midsummer Night’s Dream and As You Like It. He also explores the darker side of the trope in King Lear, where this return to the wild drives the king further into madness. In ultimately sending its lovers into the woods, Two Gentlemen of Verona is offering the first example of a journey that Shakespeare consistently retakes.
Two Gentlemen of Verona offers the first example of another of Shakespeare’s most important elements: The heroine who dresses as a boy to get what she wants. To follow her love to Milan alone, Julia dresses as a male page, eventually putting herself in Proteus’ service. Like the escape to the forest, this is an element that we see again and again in Shakespeare’s plays, including Twelfth Night, As You Like It, and Cymbeline, where the romantic heroine finds freedom, courage, and ultimately romance in men’s clothes.
While the forest and the male disguise repeat throughout Shakespeare’s work, there is one unique element in Two Gentlemen of Verona that never recurs in any of his other plays: Crab the dog. Launce, servant-clown to Proteus and Crab’s owner, refers to his dog as “the sourest-natured dog that lives” but cannot be parted from him despite Crab’s seeming ambivalence. While Crab is written to be a live dog and often is one onstage, productions have also used a cardboard or stuffed toy — all the better for Crab to ignore Launce’s directions and love.
Whether the pairs are human to human or human to pet, Two Gentlemen of Verona is a high-spirited exploration of the things we do — and shouldn’t do — for love. This Shakespeare NOW reading is a unique opportunity for modern audiences to enjoy one of Shakespeare’s very first plays, and the pattern for many of his later classics, from the comfort of home.
Lantern Theater Company’s virtual reading of Two Gentlemen of Verona is scheduled for Friday, May 22 at 7:30pm as part of our Shakespeare NOW program. Registration is FREE, but advance registration is required. Hurry, capacity is limited!
