Ghost character that when Shakespeare dramatised the poem and expanded Mercutio's role, he introduced a brother for him in order to suggest a more fraternal character. Shakespeare appears to be the first dramatist to have used the name Valentine prior to "Romeo and Juliet", but he himself had actually used the name previously. In "Two Gentlemen of Verona", a play about two brothers and also set in Verona, Valentine is a true and constant lover and Proteus is a fickle one. While not primarily based on it, "Two Gentlemen of Verona" adapts several incidents from Brooke's poem, and in all these instances
The Two Gentlemen of Verona at Stratford-upon-Avon. The earliest production about which we have significant information is Michael Langham's 1957 production at The Old Vic, starring Richard Gale as Valentine, Keith Michell as Proteus, Barbara Jefford as Julia and Ingrid Hafner as Silvia. In this production, set in late nineteenth-century Italy and grounded very much in high Romanticism, Proteus threatens to kill himself with a pistol at the end of the play, prompting Valentine's hasty offer of Silvia. Perhaps the most notable 20th-century production was Peter Hall's 1960 production at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre. Set in a late medieval "milieu", the play starred Denholm Elliott