Two Gentlemen of Verona was young Will Shakespeare’s first-ever romantic comedy. This weekend only, you’ll have a chance to see the Bard’s beginnings, in a script-in-hand performance of a story you simply have to see to believe.

Shakespeare For The Masses returns to the Vineyard Playhouse this weekend. The brainchild of Chelsea McCarthy and Nicole Galland, the troupe bills itself the “quick and painless and free” way to enjoy Shakespeare in the off-season. “We want to introduce Shakespeare-the-awesome-storyteller to people who are leery of Shakespeare-the-guy-who-writes-in-strange-old-fashioned-English,” says Ms. McCarthy. With a consistent ensemble of nimble Island actors, the shows are performed in under 90 minutes, with one day of rehearsal. A tongue-in-cheek narrator lends modern commentary and clarity to the events – and this time, in an innovation, there will be two narrators: one male, and one female, each with an extremely different point of view. Given the story line (which includes one man offering up his girlfriend to his best buddy to show he accepts his buddy’s apology for trying to rape said girlfriend), it’s not surprising it takes two voices to comment on the tale.

Since October, Shakespeare for the Masses has staged script-in-hand productions of Hamlet, Macbeth, Julius Caesar, All’s Well That Ends Well and Measure For Measure — all but the latter with a considerable amount of physical movement: duels, battle scenes, kidnappings and assassinations.

Two Gentlemen of Verona is adapted by Nicole Galland and Chelsea McCarthy, and will feature Brian Ditchfield, Brooke Hardman, Christopher Kann, Jill Macey, May Oskan, Molly Purves, Anna Ward, with Paul Munafo and Chelsea McCarthy as the “dueling narrators.”

Two Gentlemen of Verona will be performed, free of charge, April 3 and 4 at 7 p.m. at the Vineyard Playhouse, in Vineyard Haven. Running time is approximately 1 hour, 10 minutes. For more information, call the Vineyard Playhouse box office at 508-696-6300, visit the theatre’s Web site at vineyardplayhouse.org or check out the group Shakespeare for the Masses on Facebook.com.