The Two Jack-offs of Some Indeterminate Italian City

First up is The Two Gentlemen of Verona, which is a great place to start for the following reasons:

• it's a very early play
• it's a comedy
• it's not really that sophisticated
• it features a few things that are going to become recurring themes: cross-dressing, thwarted love, funny clowns, people absconding from the city (place of frustration, rules and cobblestones) to the forest (place of irrationality, nature and general topsy turvy business)
• it arrived in the mail first
• it has one of the best double acts in all of Shakespeare-dom (more on that later)

The set up is this: gullible well-meaning dimwit Valentine heads off to Verona (or is it Padua? or is it Milan? the script is surprisingly hazy on that one), and tells his best bud, callous self-serving asshole Proteus that it would be sweet if he could come along - only Proteus is smitten with Julia, a girl who is so faithful it's pretty much pathological.  Stuff happens and Proteus ends up in Generic Italian City (after making lots of vows to Julia that he's about to break into tiny pieces), where he promptly falls in love with Sylvia, Valentine's new and very switched-on girlfriend who also happens to be the daughter of the Duke (or is it the Emperor? the script is surprisingly hazy on that one too).

Proteus, being an awesome A+++ friend, quickly takes it upon himself to win Sylvia for himself, even if it means fucking over his BEST BRO IN THE WORLD and the girl he's sworn himself to, and even if it means dobbing Valentine in to the Duke so he gets banished for having the temerity to like the Duke's daughter, and even if it means pretending to help another jerk who also likes her. Hat tip to Sylvia: she sees through his rubbish. Poor Julia bears much of the brunt of this: she dresses up as a page called Sebastian and follows Proteus, because crossdressing incognito travelling is where it's at, and sees him dick her over again and again but still loves him because she's a total fucking masochist.

Let's ignore them - they are all boring, although the women are easily the nicest of the lot. The heroes of this piece are Speed, Valentine's quick-witted servant, and Lance (or Launce), Proteus's lovable, kind-hearted and soft-headed servant. La(u)nce has a dog called Crab, the outright (and invisible) star of the show, whose hobbies include whining, stealing chicken legs from ladies' tables, pissing on things, and being generally unremorseful. La(u)nce loves his foul-natured dog so much that he takes all of Crab's beatings because is just an all-round good dude.

La(u)nce is also secretly (i.e. not so secretly) in love with a pretty sweet sounding lady: "yet I am in love; but a team of horse shall not pluck that from me; nor who 'tis I love; and yet 'tis a woman; but what woman, I will not tell myself; and yet 'tis a milkmaid; yet 'tis not a maid, for she hath had gossips; yet 'tis a maid, for she is her master's maid, and serves for wages...." La(u)nce gives Speed a letter that he's written cataloging her various virtues and vices in what is one of the play's funniest scenes (III.1).

SPEED: 'Here follow her vices.'
LAUNCE: Close at the heels of her virtues.
SPEED: 'Item: She is not to be kissed fasting in respect of her breath.'
LAUNCE: Well, that fault may be mended with a breakfast. Read on.
SPEED: 'Item: She hath a sweet mouth.'
LAUNCE: That makes amends for her sour breath.
SPEED: 'Item: She doth talk in her sleep.'
LAUNCE: It's no matter for that, so she sleep not in her talk.
SPEED: 'Item: She is slow in words.'
LAUNCE: O villain, that set this down among her vices! To be slow in words is a woman's only virtue: I pray thee, out with't, and place it for her chief virtue.
SPEED: 'Item: She is proud.'
LAUNCE: Out with that too; it was Eve's legacy, and cannot be ta'en from her.
SPEED: 'Item: She hath no teeth.'
LANCE: I care not for that neither, because I love crusts.
SPEED: 'Item: She is curst.'
LANCE: Well, the best is, she hath no teeth to bite.

... and so on. It's great.

Anyway, stuff happens, blah blah, and here is the fucked up way in which all of this ends. Everyone is in the forest. Valentine, who has been banished by Sylvia's dad, has remarkably become king of the outlaws. Proteus is still madly pursuing Sylvia, Sylvia is having none of it, Valentine is just out of earshot, Julia is hovering about dressed as Sebastian the punching bag, and the outlaws are being outlaws and hopefully getting all Lost Boys on it and singing some sort of sweet forest pirate song (RU-FI-OOOOO!).

After all his inconstancy (i.e. waving his dick about the place), Proteus turns out to be a Nice Guy (TM): "O, 'tis the curse in love, and still approved, / When women cannot love where they're beloved", and when Sylvia says (once more) 'fuck no, weirdo' he responds by TRYING TO RAPE HER. No no no no no.

From here everything goes as horribly expected:

VALENTINE: oh no you don't!
PROTEUS: BUSTED sorry sorry my bad
SYLVIA: aaaaaa
VALENTINE: it's ok bro I know you're honorable and that
SYLVIA: I'm ok with everything now Valentine you're my guy
JULIA-SEBASTIAN: <<swoons>>
ALL: oh hey she's not a dude at all
JULIA: I love you anyway Proteus
PROTEUS: of course you do! sorry lady. I just remembered you're really the prettiest and the best. Kissy kiss?
EVERYONE ELSE: all other plot points are resolved hurrah! Back to the city for ale and celebration.

And everyone is happy and gets married / pardoned / otherwise entertained, and hopefully Crab the dog pisses on them all. The end.

Verdict: hrmmm.

Hello (brave new) world (that has such people in't)

I have decided to read all of Shakespeare's published plays, in roughly chronological order*, and then write something about each as I go along. The goal is to get through them in under a year, and as of early August 2014 this seems like a great idea! I'm moderately-to-very familiar a bit over half the plays and pretty hazy about the rest, but by the end I hope to be able to tsk knowingly when people** get that one bit in Henry VI part 2 mixed up with that one bit in Henry VI part 3 because, ha ha, really.

There are a few reasons for doing this:

1) I like Shakespeare

2) I like that feeling you get when you've collected the whole set of something, even if that includes the really crappy broken pieces that no one likes much anyway 

3) I like having something procrastinatory to do

and most importantly

4) I will be an asset to any pub quiz team, presuming that that particular pub quiz has detailed and esoteric questions about Shakespeare's back catalogue

This will be fun, I hope! And if I can make it through the history plays without weeping in confused frustration then I will reward myself with something nice. 

EDIT: I am almost entirely relying on the editions of the plays put out by the wonderful Folger Shakespeare Library. They are fully annotated, they sometimes have pictures, they have critical essays on the plays and their social and historical context, and they are super cheap - on average, NZ$7-8 per paperback.

* People smarter than me have long-winded debates about what was written and performed when. I am mostly following this order, but to be honest it might come down to whether or not I feel up to reading another history play.

** I don't know who these people are but I will seek them out for smug tut-tutting purposes.