The Two Gentlemen of Verona Poppy Miller as Silvia. This production set the play in a grimy unnamed contemporary city where material obsession was all-encompassing. In 2004, Fiona Buffini directed a touring production for the RSC. Premiering at the Swan, the production starred Alex Avery as Valentine, Laurence Mitchell as Proteus, Vanessa Ackerman as Julia and Rachel Pickup as Silvia. Buffini set the play in a swinging 1930s "milieu", and featuring numerous dance numbers. Additionally, London and New York replaced Verona and Milan; initially, Valentine and Proteus are shown as living in the English countryside, in a rural paradise devoid of any real vitality, the
Boris Godunov (play) opera, "Boris Godunov" (1874), is based on this play. Having finished the play, Pushkin famously wrote to his friend Pyotr Vyazemsky: "What a Pushkin, what a son of a bitch!" . Pushkin wrote of the play: "The study of Shakespeare, Karamzin, and our old chronicles gave me the idea of clothing in dramatic forms one of the most dramatic epochs of our history. Not disturbed by any other influence, I imitated Shakespeare in his broad and free depictions of characters, in the simple and careless combination of plots; I followed Karamzin in the clear development of events; I tried to