🎭 The private wound is deepest: O time most accurst,
‘Mongst all foes that a friend should be the worst!
— Valentine, Two Gentlemen of Verona 5-4
[ACTING TIPS]
Valentine, hiding in the woods to see Silvia is about to be raped by his best-friend Proteus, jumped out to stop him.
He means that this is the most hideous time to know his friend is in fact the very enemy.
There are so many ways to play this scene. He speaks some lines before saying this, which means he cannot shout all the time. He appears with shouting, maybe. But after this, I would try “how am I to tell what I feel”.
It is not just cascading his awful feeling.
It is a way to make Proteus understand and see things more clearly so that he could gain his proper mind back.
In fact, after this line, Proteus says sorry, and it feels too easy for me to grasp the change in his mind.
If I make the audience feel the same, the play is not successful.
That’s why I think I need much more time and varied skills to make Proteus really feel sorry, right after Valentine speaks the whole lines.
However, another way of acting and directing is to make Proteus really a villain and he never feel truly sorry and just give a “sorry” word as if it is a true word for Valentine. Yes, a type of LOKI.