The Two Gentlemen of Verona

This may or may not be Shakespeare's first play, but it's where I started. It has some interesting elements. The male friendship in which one friend betrays the other is very much like something in a (good) Neil Labute film. The plot, however, relies on a completely unmotivated change of attitude by the Duke to work itself out. All in all, it's hard to believe that that The Taming of the Shrew is then Shakespeare's second play--it's such a leap forward that it doesn't seem possible. More on that in the next post.