"THE TWO NOBLE KINSMEN" BY SHAKESPEARE AND FLETCHER IN TWO RARE PRODUCTIONS

No sooner did I publish my last blog post declaring that Shakespeare completists have “perhaps no bigger challenge than finding a production of all three plays in Shakespeare’s early King Henry VI trilogy” than an even rarer Shakespeare play showed up in my neighborhood: The Two Noble Kinsmen, by John Fletcher and William Shakespeare. This weekend and next it is being produced in Forest Park, Illinois by the Forest Theatre Company. As I made clear in that prior article, Henry VI is rarest in the full three-part format; it is often edited into two parts when staged. But The Two Noble Kinsmen is another holy grail for fans of the Bard. In fact, an article in the Forest Park Review reported that one self-described “Shakespeare completist” emailed the production’s artistic director, Richard Corley, to say she is flying in from England just to see this small, free outdoor production because she hasn’t seen it yet. “I have not talked to a single person who’s seen it before,” Corley told the newspaper.  

I have seen it before, but only on video. In fact, just seven months ago I watched Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre company in London stage The Two Noble Kinsmen on a 2021 DVD, which is I believe the first such commercial recording of a production of the play. The two productions make an interesting contrast, and though, as one would expect, it’s not Shakespeare’s best work, both productions are well worth watching.

I should note that to some fans, an even rarer Shakespeare play exists: The Raigne of King Edward III. It was published anonymously in 1596, but has only been included in the canon by some scholars since the late 1990s. Its authorship is still contested today and even those who think Shakespeare was involved in writing it believe it was authored by multiple playwrights. So even many hardcore Shakespeare completists do not consider it necessary to see to finish seeing all of Shakespeare’s plays. It was performed by three companies in 2016: Chicago Shakespeare Theater, as part of a three-play history cycle that included Henry V and the first part of Henry VI; the Hudson Shakespeare Company as part of a history cycle that included Richard II and Henry VI parts one and two; and the Flock Theatre in New London, Connecticut. I am not aware of any productions of it since.

The authorship of The Two Noble Kinsmen has been contested, too, but in recent decades it has increasingly been accepted into the canon. This one, after all, was not published anonymously when it first appeared in print in 1634. It was credited as it is today to both Shakespeare and Fletcher, the latter being a younger playwright known mostly as half of the playwriting team Fletcher and Beaumont. The play, based on Chaucer’s “The Knight’s Tale” from The Canterbury Tales, tells the story of a pair of cousins who fall in love with the same woman, then fight each other for her love.

Given the disputed nature of its past, it was exciting to see the play performed at Shakespeare’s own Globe Theatre, or more specifically the duplicate of it that is currently staging plays the way Elizabethans saw them in London. However, as the back wall behind the stage of the authentic Globe theatre is a crowded mess of reds and burgundies with ivy growing up the walls, multiple deer heads mounted on the wall, and a statue of an ox affixed behind the actors, I found the minimalist set at the Forest Theatre Company production to be refreshing. The busy set at the Globe distracted from the action and by contrast Corley makes great use of its park space in a beautiful and little-used park hidden behind the Altenheim nursing home off Madison Street in Forest Park, using a simple white platform in the center of the park with six white pillars behind it. Much of the action took place off the stage in the park.

The cast at the Globe is of course more experienced. Some sections of the play, including the opening scene, are challenging to stage because they are talky, tell rather than show, and are somewhat disconnected from the main plot, which does hold one’s interest. Those sections of the play “popped” better (were easier to listen to) in the more experienced Globe production. 

But the Forest Theatre Company’s interpretation was more interesting. Corley conceived the play as a “strange and queer love triangle.” All three leads (noble kinsmen Arcite and Palamon, and their love interest Emilia) are interpreted as having same-sex attractions when the play opens. “What fascinates me most about the play – and the reason I think it resonates today – is the way it questions gender norms and societal demands,” Corley writes in the program. “Arcite and Palamon have a friendship that is as great as any marriage; Emilia vows early in the play, as she remembers Flavina, her dead girlfriend, never to love a man.” This does get the play over one of its interpretational challenges: Palamon and Arcite go from describing themselves as “one another’s wife” to being willing to kill each other over a woman they’ve only just seen. When Mark Kiselevach (as Arcite) and Nathaniel Kohlmeier (as Palamon) portray the two kinsmen as attracted to each other, an element of violent jealousy enters the relationship that helps make clear why the sudden introduction of a woman to their dynamic is so upsetting to them.

Meanwhile, in the Globe production the vow made by Ellora Torchia’s Emilia never to love a man goes by almost unnoticed because once again the play is all tell and no show. By contrast the Forest Park production had Flavina (Noa Zapata) actually appear on stage, as a sort of ghost of memory, wearing a mask and carrying a black rose. This addition helped Sania Henry to dramatize Emilia’s emotional journey and was one of the best choices in the production. It’s somewhat disappointing, then, that when Emilia is told she is to marry Arcite midway through the show, she literally shrugs and accepts it. It would be possible in that moment, despite her lines accepting the marriage, to deliver them with a sense of reluctance.

Another challenge in staging The Two Noble Kinsmen is the high amount of stage time Shakespeare and Fletcher give to a minor character named only “the jailer’s daughter,” who falls in love with Palamon and ends up going mad for love. It can either be a very funny role or something of a bore. It helps to make strong choices in portraying the character, and the Globe goes all out by casting Francesca Mills, a brilliantly funny actress with dwarfism, making visible the distance between her and Palamon. The Forest Theatre Company’s Gina Cioffi deals with the challenge by imbuing the role with both drama and comedy, whereas the Globe aims almost only at laughs.

The Forest Theatre Company production runs through next Sunday, August 17. It plays Friday, Saturday and Sunday at 5 p.m. in the Grove at Altenheim, at 7824 Madison Street in Forest Park, Illinois. It is free. The Shakespeare’s Globe DVD is available online from Opus Arte, which also published the Royal Shakespeare Company’s 2022 Henry VI DVD that I reviewed in my last post on this blog.