Characters in Romeo and Juliet he is given a direct connection to his brother. Although he has a very small role in Shakespeare's play, earlier versions of the story gave him no role or mention at all. In fact, they gave even Mercutio a very minor role. Shakespeare was the first English dramatist to use the name "Valentine" on stage, in his earlier plays, "Titus Andronicus" and "The Two Gentlemen of Verona". In "Titus", Valentine plays a minor role, but in "Two Gentlemen", he is one of the title characters. Incidentally, the Valentine of "Two Gentlemen" borrows heavily from Arthur Brooke's Romeus in "The Tragical
The Two Gentlemen of Verona their interdependence." As such, the final scene "stages the play's ultimate collaboration of male friendship and its incorporation of the plot we would label "heterosexual"." This is also how Roger Warren interprets the final scene. Warren cites a number of productions of the play as evidence for this argument, including Robin Phillips' Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) production in 1970, where Valentine kisses Silvia, makes his offer and then kisses Proteus. Another staging cited by Warren is Edward Hall's 1998 Swan Theatre production. In Hall's version of the scene, after Valentine says the controversial line, Silvia approaches him and takes him