Shakespeare helped popularise tragedies and romantic comedies – why not buddy comedies? For that’s what this is – two mates from Verona who double cross and support each other according to how the whim takes them, centuries before Bing and Bob did the Road movies. Indeed, when Proteus falls in love with his mate’s girl and promptly sets about doubt crossing him – it could be directly out of Road to Morocco, right down to Valentine becoming the leader of a group of bandits (there’s a reference to “Robin Hood’s fat friar”).
This is simple, fun Shakespeare – romance, comic servants, cross-dressing. The plot and language are easy to follow, the scenes are short, the cast is small. It’s a good way to be introduced to the Shakespeare – if you’re not put off by some of the character’s casual anti-Semitism (“a Jew would have wept”) and misogyny (“to be slow in words is a woman’s only virtue”). Okay yes it goes seem that Proteus wants to rape Silvia and then gets redeemed almost immediately – but you could argue he doesn’t want to rape her and it was the heat of the moment and… alright, it is offensive. But at least the female characters are spirited – Julia who dresses as a boy, Silvia who doesn’t trust Proteus. (Thurio, the comic rival, refers to him having a black face – there are more black characters in Shakespeare than I realised.)
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