Shakespeare in Performance and Thomas More Studies
Shakespeare’s Last Play, The Two Noble Kinsmen, adapted and directed by Travis Curtright, PhD.
Twenty-three years after writing his first play, Shakespeare teamed up with John Fletcher to write his last one, The Two Noble Kinsmen (1613), a drama based upon Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Knight’s Tale. If The Tempest was not Shakespeare's last work, why would he finish his writing career in reflection upon Chaucer's much earlier poetry?
IT ALL BEGAN AT A BAR
One manuscript from the period suggests an answer with its record of how Shakespeare and his friends, Richard Burbage and Ben Jonson, carved their names into the "panels" of the Tabard Inn, a tavern already famous as the very place where The Canterbury Tales opened. Chaucer was considered to be the most outstanding English poet before Shakespeare's own rise in prestige, and so Shakespeare's graffiti indicates homage to Chaucer's work.
TO LEAVE YOUR MARK
The Shakespeare graffiti story is also an apt metaphor to describe this adaptation of The Two Noble Kinsmen. The deletion of over 60% of the original, the addition of new characters, and the introduction of music and dance may strike some as illicit scribblings across the public monuments of English literature. Others are welcome to view adaptation as homage. Shakespeare wanted to associate himself with a great poet of the past by inscribing his name into the walls of Tabard Inn. More importantly, he left his mark on Chaucer's original tale by adapting it for the stage.
CHANGING THE MEME
So, too, this production remains a satire of chivalry, though not exactly like the satire that was present in either the original poem or Shakespeare and Fletcher's play. We parody the Bachelor and Bachelorette franchises, male model poses, drunken "country nights," and love doctors. Instead of the original ending, our less than tragic conclusion seeks to redefine and enlarge what "noble kinship" means by emphasizing "love" and "mercy."
YOUR PLAYERS:
ARCITE: Jose Quiceno
PALAMON: Joe Marsh
THESEUS: Will Bell
HERMIA: Brigid Bakin
EMILIA: Naomi Atherley
LOVE DOCTOR: Matt Jacques
HIPPOLYTA: Anna Mahoney
PIRITHOUS: John Scheck
FIRST QUEEN: Anna Coppa
THIRD QUEEN: Lucy Baird
SECOND QUEEN: Mary Gay
JAILER: Michael Lopez
FOURTH COUNTRYMAN: Sebastian Curtright
FIRST COUNTRYMAN: Michael Lopez
VALERIUS: Sebastian Curtright
SECOND COUNTRY WOMAN: Lucy Baird
THIRD COUNTRY WOMAN: Anna Coppa
DANCERS FOR MEIN TENU SAMJHAWAN KI AND SUCKER FOR YOU: Christopher Das, Nicola Brennan, Lannae Nargi, Abigail Kendziorski, Margarita Altomare, Laura Buccheri, Analiese Hratko
HAKA DANCE: John Paul Beller, John Scheck, Jose Quiceno, Joe Marsh