A first time for everything...

If you listen carefully, 2Gents is a play full of echoes. Or... the opposite of echoes? Whatever that first sound is that will reverberate again and again and again.

Many plot and thematic elements first introduced in The Two Gentlemen of Verona are used and developed over and over again in Shakespeare’s mature plays.

Watch for:

The plucky heroine disguised as a boy, taking matters into her own hands.

• Julia in 2 Gents (Note that she calls herself ‘Sebastian’, the name of Viola’s brother in 12^th Night.)
• Rosalind in As You Like It
• Viola in 12^th Night
• Portia (and Nerissa) The Merchant of Venice
• Imogen in Cymbeline

Although Julia is sent by Proteus to Sylvia to further his suit, their relationship ends there. It took a while for Shakespeare to recognize the comic plot potential of having another woman fall in love with his disguised heroine.

• Phebe in As You Like It
• Olivia in 12^th Night

The lover’s ring/lover’s gift

• Julia is finally recognized by Proteus because she accidentally shows him his own ring
• Olivia tries to claim the disguised Viola’s love in 12^th Night by ‘returning’ a ring that Viola never gave her
• Portia and Nerissa – disguised as boys – obtain their husbands’ wedding rings (which they had promised never to give away) as rewards for legal services in Merchant
• Helena claims Bertram with a ring she obtained by disguising herself (not as a boy) in All’s Well That Ends Well
• In Othello the love gift is not a ring but a handkerchief, and Desdemona has no intention of giving it away: it must be stolen from her to set the tragedy in motion

Banishment: separation from everything familiar as a pre-requisite for growing up

• As You Like It
• Hamlet
• Valentine’s lovely little speech about banishment surely prefigures Romeo on the same subject
• Also, Valentine’s lie to the outlaws about the reason for his banishment (to make himself look tougher in their eyes) prefigures what happens to Romeo

The sea as a (hostile) image of separation (and death): geographical impossibilities become thematic necessities in Shakespeare:

• How exactly would you go by boat from Verona to Milan…?
• The separation of the friends is more than geographical
• The reference to Leander and the Hellespont – although dealt with lightly – doesn’t bode well
• The Proteus/Speed dialogue of “ship” and “sheep” – Isaiah 53:6 and the dangers of separation
• Also the final reference, again cloaked in humour, to shipwreck (which Speed will prevent, since he’s destined to hang)
• “throw it thence into the raging sea” Julia
• “and drenched me in the sea, where I am drown’d” Proteus
• Tide and tears: “The tide is now: nay, not thy tide of tears; 580
  That tide will stay me longer than I should.” Proteus, 2.2 and “if the river were dry, I am able to fill it with my tears” Launce, 2.3
• The “seacoast of Bohemia” WinTale
• Prospero’s “island”
• The destruction of the family unit through shipwreck in both 12^th Night and The Comedy of Errors