Shelter-In-Place Reading Roundup: Two Kinsmen & Two Gents

A young Tom Hanks as Proteus (with an unidentified actor, perhaps as Valentine) in a 1978 production of Two Gentlemen of Verona. Is Hanks the only actor who could make Proteus likable?

In my latest round of reviews from my Shakespeare book club, I couldn’t resist pairing his two “Two Dudes” plays. Isn’t it interesting that they may also be the very first & very last play he ever wrote?

The Two Gentlemen of Verona by William Shakespeare
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Is it possible to enjoy a frothy rom-com where the main character is a sociopath? Many commentators have pointed out that Shakespeare’s witty cross-dressing heroines are rarely paired with men worthy of them – Bassanio in The Merchant of Venice is a slick fortune-hunter, Orlando in As You Like It is sweet but dopey – but Two Gents’ Proteus is truly repellent. The play is basically the story of how he betrays both his girlfriend Julia and his best friend Valentine, all to try to get with Valentine’s fiancée Sylvia, who wants nothing to do with him. I think it’s meant to be silly and charming in an “ah, the things we do for love” way, but it comes off as quite appalling.

In fact, one wonders if the title is intentionally ironic. Proteus’ behavior indicates that he is no gentleman. His friend-turned-rival, Valentine, is somewhat more honorable, but also gives up his gentlemanly status when he becomes a forest outlaw toward the end of the play! Meanwhile, the young ladies, Julia and Sylvia, display the so-called masculine or gentlemanly virtues of courage and steadfastness more than the men ever do. While the women initially seem somewhat coy and capricious, adversity brings out their best qualities—and their boyfriends’ worst qualities.

Also far more sympathetic and interesting than the gentlemen are their two working-class, quick-witted servants, one of whom has a pet dog that is likely to steal the show.

Maybe the worst thing about this play isn’t just that Proteus is so horrible, but that there isn’t enough substance to the rest of it to make you want to dig deeper. I mean, The Taming of the Shrew is hellaciously problematic too, but at least it has a solid comedy structure and room for several possible interpretations of the central relationship. I would rather listen ten times to Katherine’s speech justifying how women should submit to their husbands than listen once to Proteus’ speech about how he's justified in betraying Valentine and Julia, and that’s saying something.

The Two Noble Kinsmen by William Shakespeare
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The Two Noble Kinsmen is an uneasy blend of medieval chivalric romance and Jacobean populist bawdiness. Adapting Geoffrey Chaucer’s courtly “Knight's Tale,” Shakespeare and Fletcher add a comic subplot, some Morris dancing, a lot of lewd jokes, and a whole lot of homoeroticism. Seriously, it’s almost impossible to read this play and not think that Theseus and Pirithous are gay for each other, Arcite and Palamon are gay for each other (eventually sublimating their passion into enmity), and Emilia is a lesbian trapped in an impossible situation. The probable queerness of all the participants in the central love triangle adds an extra layer of absurdity to a set-up that was pretty absurd to begin with. I mean, this is a world where you are justified in fighting your beloved cousin to the death if you are both interested in the same lady, whom neither of you really knows beyond her pretty face.

Maybe some of the play’s tonal inconsistency can be attributed to its collaborative nature. Scholars believe that Shakespeare wrote the more serious, ceremonial scenes at the beginning and end, and Fletcher wrote the funnier stuff in the middle. (My new headcanon is that Shakespeare was like “Well, I already wrote a play where a bunch of yokels go into the Athens woods to rehearse an entertainment for Theseus and Hippolyta’s wedding, so why don’t you write that section, John.”) The collaboration also may have caused some plot/character inconsistencies. In Act 3, thought to be Fletcher’s work, Palamon and Arcite share bawdy reminiscences about “the wenches we have known in our days.” But in Act 5, when Palamon prays to Venus in a monologue written by Shakespeare, he denounces men who seduce women and brag about it.

The Jailer’s Daughter has some wonderful monologues and, even though she goes mad in a very Ophelia-like way, it is nice to see that she will likely get a happier ending than poor Ophelia. However, Hippolyta and Emilia had the potential to be so much more interesting—they are Amazon warrior princesses and Emilia may be the only canonically lesbian character in all of Shakespeare! A friend in my Shakespeare reading group suggested re-titling this play “Two Men Who Don’t Know What to Do With Women,” which I love because it could refer both to Palamon and Arcite, and Shakespeare and Fletcher.