Month: July 2026
Review: Kentucky Shakespeare’s “Two Gentlemen Of Verona”
In Case You Haven’t Heard
Two Gentlemen Of Verona is probably Shakespeare’s first comedy, maybe even his first play. A lot of the plot devices and themes Shakespeare explores in later plays were first set down in Two Gentlemen.
The Plot
Two Gentlemen Of Verona is about two best friends, Valentine and Proteus, who start out as young men yearning for adventure and to seek their fortune in Milan. As you might have guessed from his name, Valentine finds love instead of fortune, and so does his friend Proteus. What makes the play unique is that Proteus falls in love with Valentine’s betrothed Silvia, forsaking his faithful sweetheart Julia. The two virtuous girls support each other and fight to stop Proteus from sabotaging their relationships. In the end though, Valentine forgives Proteus and Valentine takes him back, which makes the play a little controversial for modern audiences.
The Concept
What happens in Milan, stays in Milan! Shakespeare’s gleefully silly comedy is set in 1940’s Las Vegas, where love and friendship are put to the test. A charming adventure navigating a love triangle, betrayal, disguises, an escape into the forest, and a dog. -Quoted from the official program.
The play is set in 1940s Las Vegas, which works well with the theme of young, impressionable men trying to make their fortunes in a place where luck can change in an instant. Proteus goes from a lover and loyal friend to a liar and traitor. Meanwhile, Valentine’s luck changes from a favored gentleman at court, to a banished vagabond.
The performances had the air of a 1940s classic comedy, with a lot of stylized slapstick and over-the top characters. It echoes the work of Laurel and Hardy or Abbot and Costello, which I feel was a wise choice- even if the audience couldn’t understand a word of the dialogue, they could still be entertained by the actors’ over-the top comedy.
Free Shakespeare In the Park
This was my first KY Shakespeare production, and I enjoyed the overall vibe a lot. According to kyShakespeare.com, the company is enjoying its 66th year of being the longest running, non-ticketed Shakespeare festival in the United States. The company prides itself as being accessible, inclusive, anti-racist, and generally committed to welcoming all people to enjoy their shows. From what I saw from my seat on a balmy day in Olmstead Park, Kentucky Shakespeare is doing a great job accomplishing its goals. I saw people from many different walks of life come by, laugh at the jokes, clap and cheer, and have a good time.
The Cast
The cast has a great grasp of Shakespeare’s language and comic timing. Like I said before, the cast performed as if they were in a 1940s classic comedy, which helps sells some of the absurd moments in the play. That said, across the board, the actors also knew how to deliver the serious moments of the play with grace and pathos.
Crystian Wiltshire (Proteus)
As you read earlier, Proteus’ character commits some very questionable actions- betraying his friend and forsaking his girlfriend for no good reason. In order to make the audience feel even a tiny amount of sympathy for him, would require an actor with charm, and a great sense of humor. Fortunately, Chrystian Wiltshire brings both of these qualities, as well as a great deal of skill. His Proteus is basically a young, naive fool, who never considers the long term consequences of his actions. One gets the impression that by the end of the play, he will learn his lesson and become a better man. Still, I heard a few people booing when Valentine forgave him at the end of the play. It’s a testament to Mr Wiltshire’s performance that he inspired such an emotional response from the audience.
Justin Jackson (Valentine) Obviously, any production of Two Gentlemen depends upon the actors playing the title characters. The play’s central tension is Proteus changing from a lover to a liar and Valentine from a libertine to a lover. Fortunately, Mr Jackson is a great foil for Mr Wiltshire as Proteus. He excellently portrays the change of Valentines heart. At the beginning of the play he is charming and devil-may-care. If you haven’t read the play before, you might expect that Valentine might be the real liar and cheat from the way he teases Proteus about his lovesick behavior. But, once he meets Silvia, Valentine is utterly sincere and his smarmy looks are replaced by a rock solid earnestness. Jackson expertly conveys this startling metamorphosis with his powerful voice, imposing height, and dashing good looks. I wish I could see him in a tragic role like Hamlet or Brutus, but with his masterful portrayal of Valentine, I’m sure he’ll have many more memorable performances in the future.
Kate Drury (Julia) I hope I have established by now that the main idea Shakespeare conveys in this play is that people transform when they fall in love, and neither the exterior nor interior man (or woman), resembles who they were. This is especially true with Julia, who starts out as a simpering, childish girl who tears up Proteus’s love letter to prove that she is not in love, but then agonizes over her cruel destruction of the note. This speech could seem cloyingly sweet or annoying in the wrong hands, but Miss Drury pulls it off to great effect.
Even more impressive is the transformation Julia undergoes in Act 2, where she disguises herself as a man and faces many dangers to find and confront Proteus. She even has the heart to befriend Silvia, the woman Proteus forsakes her for. The childish Julia from Act I might not understand that Proteus is unfaithful, not the virtuous Silvia, but Kate effortlessly shows Julia’s wisdom to see that Silvia never entices Proteus, and scolds his behavior on behalf of Julia herself. It’s rare to see an Elizabethan playwright portray a female friendship that is mature and genuine, but Shakespeare manages to do so, and the actresses mirror this relationship flawlessly.
Tilly as Crabbe the Dog
For most people in the audience, the true star of the show was Tilly as Crabbe the dog. When my kids and I took our seats, my son’s immediate question was “When is the dog coming?” To be fair, Tilly is very cute and never once breaks character.
My Reaction
I tried my best to separate my feelings about Two Gentlemen Of Verona from the production. As I mentioned earlier, as Shakespeare’s first comedy, many of his more famous works are actually derived from this one. For instance, we have an Italian hero who visits his beloved by night, whose love is denied and he is banished from Verona, (sound familiar?) We also have a heroine who disguises herself as a boy, (a device which Shakespeare employs at least six times), a comic servant, a maid, pirates, a foppish suitor, and a bit where the heroine secretly obtains her beloved’s ring. As a hardcore Shakespeare fan, seeing these repeated devices and characters was a little tedious after recognizing them from other plays. I also felt that the dialogue should have been edited a little bit more- the play was about 2 1/2 hours which I felt was a little too long. That said, the skill of the actors and the creative use of the setting helped make Two Gentlemen Of Verona an enjoyable experience for all.
In conclusion, I can see why people like this play and I too enjoy it, despite its questionable subtext.
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Shakespeare and American History
If you grew up in America the details of shakespeare’s life are probably really confusing and it’s very hard to connect an extra experience history because we don’t learn English history in very much in American schools we’re not really interested in anything before 1776 so I thought i’d do the short video to place shakespeare’s life in the context of the history of America we know Shakespeare wrote about America so he was clearly interested and you’re probably interested in Shakespeare So here we go in 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue he was employed by Queen fergunand by king Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain who were looking for a cheaper way to get to the Indies because India had lots and lots of spices that the Europeans couldn’t live without they also and Asia controlled all the ways to get there and charge Europeans a lot of money to go there so columbus’s idea was to go the other way around and he wound him wound up in a new continent and to say face he called the inherent evidence Indians like that really did anything Queen Isabella and King Fernandez were also famous for expelling the Jews from Spain a fact that will become important in Shakespeare’s later comedy Merchant Of Venice his most controversial play which has a Jewish Monday lender as the villain at around the same time that Columbus was Sailing for the new world back in England a Civil War had just ended between 2 Royal Houses each with a claim to the Throne of England the white rose family the house of York which used a white rose as its crest and the house of Lancaster which used a red rose as it’s crushed that’s the name the wars of the Roses The guy who won the war and became King wasn’t really a member of either house per se his name was Henry Tudor and he became King Henry VII his son was King Henry the eighth who Shakespeare would have mortalized in his last and worset play anyway Henry the eighth You probably Know that he had 6 wives 2 of whom he beheaded and who are now Immortalized in the Broadway musical King Henry had one air King Edward VII who died Young Through a tortuous series of political backstabbing breaking with the church and lots and lots of conflict England would be placed in the capable hands of his daughter Queen Elizabeth I who took the throne in 15 58 4 years later a widow baby boy was born in Stratford-upon-Avon who building and puking the nurse’s arms his name was William Shakespeare and now our story finally beginshakespeare was the third of 8 children His 2 elder siblings died possibly due to plagwe don’t know a ton about him from his boyhood years the first mention of him being a successful playwright comes in 1593 around the same time that voyages to Virginia were being started in America’s Virginia was named after Queen Elizabeth Shakespeare’s boss Because she called herself the Virgin Queen Shakespeare’s firshakespeare’s first place were very popular they were fictionalized comic book ask versions of the of the wars of the roses where some people were good and some people were bad even though history is much more complicated than that they were basically the Avengers: Endgame in the sense that the story was split into multiple parts with many famous characters played by the best actors of the day He went on to write comedy’s histories and his plays were popular enough to get for him to get invited to court to perform them in front of the Queen herself until her death at 16 0 3 where she was replaced with King James I and King james started an exposition to send mor to set up colonies in America after the Spanish and the French had been there too King James was also Scottish he was originally the king king James of Scotland but because he was sort of related to Elizabeth’s cousins he he became a king of England after her death the guy was also very terrified of witches and wrote a book about how to find witches which would eventually influence the American Salem witch trials and 1628 Shakespeare wrote some of his best work for king James Hamlet McBeth a fellow oh the done it’s and by someone counts even the king James bible Shakespeare died in 16 16 4 years later king James sent another expedition to America that would be eventually become weawhere the first puritant and the first puritan the pilgrim fathers came to Massachusetts in 1620 landing at Plymouth so you can see that shakespeare’s life kind of book ends the most important event the beginning moments of American history Shakespeare even mentioned to America in the comedy of errors and in all smell that ends well but he refers to the Indians as religious in their error referring to the fact that they are clearly spiritual people that do but worship the wrong gods to it in 2 Europeans this final play The Tempest of wasn’t by most scholars Believe was based on an account of the of the the Discovery of Bermuda and a fellow hymns and a fellow Came out wrong which has which is the only play that Shakespeare ever wrote where a Black man is the Hero was was was written around the same time that King James was thinking of expelling Black people from England and Europeans were starting to become interested in the possibility of African slavery after shakespeare’s death the transatlantic slave trade started and American started to conquer most to divide and conquer the continent of America I don’t know what Shakespeare would think of America but he did see it as an interesting exotic place but after shakespeare’s deamericans would gravitate towards Shakespeare to show how intelligent and sophisticated they were George Washington put on Shakespeare play
The Shakespearean Student 