by William Shakespeare
ages: adult
First sentence: “Cease to persuade, my loving Proteus: Home-keeping youth have never homely wits.”
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I picked this one because our local Shakespeare company is doing it this month (we’re going this weekend to see their production). And, because it was a comedy. Though — to be completely honest — I kind of got this one mixed up with The Merchant of Venice. I kept expecting Shylock to show up…

As for this one (no merchants) the plot goes thusly: A couple of rich, pampered boys from Verona (the two gents of the title) — Valentine (which my girls — who watched/read with me — said that’s a really stupid name) and Proteus — are basically hanging out.  Proteus has a girl — Julia — and is giving Valentine a hard time for not having one. So, when Valentine leaves to go see the world (oh, bully for him), he ends up in Milan at the court of the Duke/Emperor (Shakespeare couldn’t decide) and falls head over heels in love with Silvia (who kept coming in amid fanfare and flower petals in the version we watched). Everything is all happiness. That is (cue sinister music here), until Proteus gets sent away to Milan to the Duke/Emperor’s house and meets Silvia and falls head over heels in love with her.

At which point we were all like: “DUDE! You just professed your love to JULIA. You GAVE HER YOUR RING. Which has to be ALL kinds of serious in Shakespeare, RIGHT?? WHAT are you THINKING???”

So, Proteus decides to get Silvia — who, to her credit, is really in love with Valentine — to like him honestly. Failing that, he decides to go to her father, make up some slanderous story about Valentine, and get him exiled. Which wins him the award for Worst Best Friend EVER. After which, Valentine goes to the forest and becomes king of the outlaws.No joke. No, we didn’t understand that, either.

Proteus tries again with Silvia the Old-fashioned Way, by singing a terrible sonnet at the foot of her balcony at midnight. Hey, if it worked for Romeo… However, since Silvia really is True To Valentine, she runs into said forest (it is a Shakespeare comedy, after all). Whereupon Proteus chases her and tries to force himself on her.By this point, Julia, who Can’t Live Without Him, has disguised herself as a boy and ran off to Milan in search of her True Love. And discovers him singing to Silvia.That doesn’t go over well with her. Heart broken, she runs into the forest as well.

Yep. It’s a Shakespeare comedy were everyone ends up in the forest. Didn’t see that coming. At all.

Anyway, Proteus is out being a total douchebag, when the outlaws catch him and drag him to Valentine, who decides to get all (rightly) ticked off at Proteus. And Julia’s there — in a very bad disguise by the way — heart breaking, and Silvia’s crying, and it’s just a mess. Somehow it all gets straightened out, and Julia gives Proteus his ring back by accident whereupon he remembers her (WHAT?!?) and she FORGIVES him (WHAT?????) and la-di-da everyone lives happily ever after.

If you didn’t get it from reading this far, we were kind of MEH about this one. There’s so much not right with this play. Maybe the local company will make it work for me, but we’ll see. Go see Much Ado About Nothing instead. It’s SO much better.