At long last, a brand new entry in my ‘Shakespearewatch’!
THE TWO NOBLE KINSMEN
Yes, it’s getting pretty obscure. So obscure, in fact, that
the BBC didn’t mount a production of this play as part of their
late-70s/early-80s Bardathon. Why? Well, because depending on where you sit on
the fence, it may or may not count as part of the Shakespeare canon. It’s easy
enough to include the plays from the first Folio, as they’re all by
Shakespeare, pretty much (and it’s easy to remove the odd bits that were added
by other parties) but TNK is a
collaboration, and hence falls into the murky area of being
not-quite-Shakespeare. But the BBC produced the other John Fletcher
collaboration, H8, as well as Per, the collaboration with George
Wilkins which contains far less Shakespeare material than TNK, so it’s hard to discern the rationale that meant this play,
along with E3 and STM, should be omitted. The play has
also not been filmed by anyone else or had any stage productions released on
DVD to my knowledge.
So instead I’ve had to resort to reading the text, courtesy
of The Arden Shakespeare (which is lovely, except for the strange occasions
where the typeface mysteriously changes and where the line-number attributions
are out). I did see the play performed a couple of years ago, at the Brockley
Jack, but that production omitted the whole first act, so I’m not sure that
counts as having seen it properly (the irony is that the first act is the part
of the play with the most Shakespeare material). So for me this was a little
voyage of discovery as well as a chance to tick off an outstanding box.
The play is based on a story by Chaucer, The Knight’s Tale. I’ve never really got
on with Chaucer, partly because of the language - it’s either impenetrable and
presented with wacky old-style spellings and typography, or presented as a
modern translation which feels inauthentic, like cheating. But it’s a childishly
simple story, so you don’t need to know Chaucer to get it. In adapting the
story Shakespeare and Fletcher seem to have found they didn’t have enough
material for a full-length play and so they added a subplot with more songs and
a dance number. This subplot, concerning the Jailer’s daughter (they don’t seem
to have bothered giving her a name) barely connects to the main plot at all,
and could be excised from the play without difficulty. Maybe the Brockley Jack
production could have done that instead of cutting the first act, but the thing
is, the subplot with the Jailer’s daughter is probably more interesting than
the a-plot about the Kinsmen.
This plot can essentially be boiled down to the eternal
dilemma of ‘bros before hoes’; whether one should be more loyal to one’s male
best friend or to ones favourite gardening implement. I’ll describe it in basic
terms as I go along. What’s interesting, I think, is that the a-plot with the
Kinsmen goes out of its way to make it clear it’s set in ancient Athens, with
lots of mentions of Greek gods and myths, whereas the b-plot with the Jailer’s
daughter might as well be set in the present day, as it features a Morris Dance
(!) and comes across as a mish-mash of ideas previously seen in other Shakespeare
plays, particularly TS, MND and Ham. And yet it seems that the b-plot is
largely the work of John Fletcher aping Shakespeare, while Shakespeare handled
the ancient Greek stuff. I’ll also point out the attribution as I go along,
bearing in mind it’s an imprecise art where no two academics agree, because it
can be hard to tell the difference between Shakespeare, Shakespeare as
rewritten by Fletcher, Fletcher deliberately writing in a Shakespearean manner,
and Fletcher (whose style is not that far removed from Shakespeare’s anyway;
certainly not as much as George Wilkins).
The one general impression I got from reading the play was
that it would be an ideal play to put on at the new Sam Wanamaker Playhouse.
Partly because, like DM which I saw
back in February, it’s one of the few plays we definitely know was staged at
(and probably written for) the Blackfriars Theatre (the basis for the Sam Wanamaker
Playhouse). But also because the playhouse would be able to overcome many of
the play’s shortcomings; the jailer’s daughter being lost in the forest could
be made genuinely creepy and make her imaginary creatures seem plausible; the
theatre would lend itself to the various special effects of the Act 5 temple
scene; and even the off-stage tournament at the end could be made to seem
climactic if presented in near-darkness as a sequence of sound effects
(Emilia’s speech in Act 5 Scene 3 20-29 makes it clear the tournament is taking
place at night). So I hope they do it, though they’ll probably do Tem first.
Here’s a fact for you. TNK
contains the first known use of the word ‘unfriended’ (though Shakespeare
had previously used ‘unfriend’ in KL).
During the course of reading the annotations I also
discovered that the word to ‘cozen’ (meaning to deceive) derives from the
custom of fraudsters to pose as long-lost cousins, and that ‘bonfire’ doesn’t
derive from ‘bon-fire’, but from ‘bone-fire’ i.e. a funeral pyre. Quite
interesting.
Anyway, here’s a quick run-through, with my thoughts as they
occur.
Prologue (Fletch)
A guy comes on stage to say they hope they do justice to
Chaucer and don’t cause him to spin in his grave.
Act 1
Scene 1 (Shakey)
After a quick song, three Queens come to Athens to petition
King Theseus to take revenge on King Creon of Thebes, who has killed their
three husbands. Theseus is due to get married to Hippolyta but decides to
postpone the nuptials and declare war, after being entreated on behalf of
womankind by Hippolyta and her sister Emilia.
- This scene is one of two that contains a lot of Chaucer,
long, flowery descriptions of the dead kings, and goes on a bit.
Scene 2 (Shakey)
King Creon’s two nephews, Palamon and Arcite, are keen to
leave Thebes. They’re not keen on their uncle, but when a messenger rushes in
warning of King Theseus’ approaching army they decide that honour dictates they
must fight to defend Thebes.
- Contains long discussion about nature of honour and duty
of allegiance to someone you consider a tyrant.
Scene 3 (Shakey)
Hippolyta is missing Theseus while he’s away. Pirithous, Theseus’
best mate and old army buddy, is missing him too. This prompts Emilia to
remember her best friend Flavina; she remembers playing with her when they were
both eleven years old, before Flavina tragically died. Emilia doesn’t think she
could ever love a man as much as she loved Flavina.
- Now, this could be taken as being a bit homoerotic, a bit
hot-schoolgirl-lesbian-action, except for the fact that the play makes it clear
both girls were prepubescent (‘beginning to swell about the blossom’) and that
their friendship was a schoolgirl crush with no physical/sexual dimension
(unless you search for double entendre on the word ‘enjoy’). But nevertheless
Emilia does conclude that the love between ‘maid and maid’ is, to her, more
powerful than the love between a chap and a woman.
Scene 4 (Shakey rewritten by Fletch?)
The battle’s over and Theseus has won. Palamon and Arcite
are brought in on ‘hearses’; they’ve both shown great bravery during the battle
and now have life-threatening injuries. Having admired their derring-dos,
Theseus decides they should both be nursed back to health, in prison, back home
in Athens.
- Rather surprisingly, Theseus seems to have now forgotten
his postponed marriage to Hippolyta.
Scene 5 (Shakey rewritten by Fletch?)
The three Queens have a bit of a sing-song about their dead
husbands.
Act 2
Scene 1 (Shakey)
The jailer and his daughter discuss their prisoners, Arcite
and Palamon, who seem delighted to be incarcerated in each other’s company.
- Although the daughter makes it clear she finds both of
them attractive, it’s odd that this scene doesn’t set up or mention her love
for Palamon specifically.
Scene 2 (Fletch)
In the prison, Arcite and Palamon have a chat about how
they’re better off out of it, or at least, better off not being in Thebes and
better off being in each other’s company where they can be ‘one another’s
wife’. They are best buddies – until they spot Emilia in the garden. Palamon
claims dibs as he saw her first. Arcite calls double dibs because he likes her
more. But I love her as a goddess! But I love her as a woman! They decide,
should they ever get free, to fight over Emilia to the death. Then the jailer turns
up to take Arcite away. Arcite is banished from Athens. This news irks Palamon
as he thinks this means Arcite will go to Thebes and raise an army to get
Emilia, Troy-style.
- The whole ‘we’re best mates’ bit is so over-the-top, and
goes on for so long, I detect a sense of it taking the piss slightly, that
Arcite and Palamon are trying to live up to a (Chivalric?) ideal of what bros
should be. Certainly this seems to be the case bearing in mind how quickly
their friendship dissolves at the sight of a babe.
Scene 3 (Fletch)
Arcite is wandering around in the woods outside Athens (yes,
the same wood as MND) when he comes
across a load of bumpkins preparing to perform a Morris dance for the Duke.
They mention some games that are taking place in Athens, and Arcite decides to
return to Athens to compete, as he’s a bit of a sporty type and bound to win.
Scene 4 (Fletch)
The jailer’s daughter wanders alone in the woods. She’s in
love with Palamon, desperate to shag him (‘What pushes are we wenches driven to
when fifteen once has found us!’ i.e. girls go mad once they are fifteen) and
decides to release him from her father’s prison.
- It’s an odd dramatic choice that we get this bit of action
covered in two soliloquies from the daughter (here and in scene 6) rather than
getting to see her actually release Palamon; the result being that there isn’t
a single scene in the play where Palamon and the daughter have any sort of
interaction beyond her watching him through a window in Act 2 Scene 1.
Scene 5 (Fletch)
Arcite has disguised himself as a bumpkin and competed in
the games and won. Theseus meets him at the award-giving ceremony. Emilia takes
a shine to Arcite. Having seen Arcite demonstrate his great horsemanship,
Pirithous decides he should become Emilia’s horse-boy. Arcite kisses Emilia’s
hand - looks like his plan is paying off! Then he is invited to go out hunting
with the family the next day.
Scene 6 (Fletch)
The jailer’s daughter has released Palamon and left him in
the woods while she went to fetch a file and some food. She isn’t sure that he
loves her – he hasn’t shown her much gratitude – but she is convinced they will
become lovers and run away together.
Act 3
Scene 1 (Shakey)
The next morning, Arcite becomes separated from Theseus et
al while they’re out on the hunt. Alone in the woods, he talks to himself about
how lucky he is to be in close contact with Emilia, little realising he is
being overheard by Palamon, lurking in a bush! Palamon emerges, none too
pleased about what he’s heard, and challenges him to a duel to the death. Arcite
hears a hunting horn and hurries away, promising to return with food, water and
cutting equipment.
Scene 2 (Fletch)
The jailer’s daughter returns to the woods for a third scene
where she does nothing but talk to herself. She finds that Palamon isn’t where
she left him and assumes that he has been eaten by a wolf (as he couldn’t walk
far without his chains making a noise, which would attract wolves). She also
suddenly realises that her father will be blamed for Palamon’s escape and will
be put to death, thanks to her.
- Basically any actress has her work cut out with this
scene, making leaps to wild conclusions seem plausible whilst also giving the
first hints of a descent into madness.
Scene 3 (Fletch)
Arcite returns to Palamon with food, water and cutting
equipment. Palamon challenges him to a duel to the death over Emilia. Arcite
tries to change the subject to various girls they have known (in the shagging
sense) but Palamon is gagging for a duel. Problem is, they don’t have any
swords. Wait here, says Arcite, I’ll just go and fetch some.
- This scene implies that they have both fathered
illegitimate children, which sits a little oddly with their protestations
of/aspirations to honour in the rest o the play. But they may just be drunkenly
boasting.
Scene 4 (Fletch)
Yet another scene with the jailer’s daughter wandering in
the woods on her own talking to herself. It’s now got dark and she’s hearing
and seeing things, her imagination running wild as she loses her sanity.
- Her train-of-thought nonsense and (elsewhere)
uncharacteristic lewdness and I-know-a-secret-business strongly recalling
Ophelia in Ham.
Scene 5 (Fletch)
A pompous Schoolmaster gathers together the bumpkins from
earlier (along with their wives) to prepare their dance for King Theseus and
Hippolyta. They are surprised by the arrival of the jailer’s daughter looking
literally like she has been dragged through a hedge backwards and singing a
sea-shanty. Theseus and Hippolyta turn up and the Schoolmaster ambushes them
with a Morris dance.
- The Schoolmaster’s speech to Theseus and Hippolyta
strongly recalls Quince’s prologue to the same in MND. It’s making essentially the same jokes – a country bumpkin
attempting to appear clever by delivering a poetic recital but making himself
look ridiculous with his forced rhymes, alliteration, leaden adherence to a
metre and getting his vocabulary and classical allusions wrong. (Where MND has ‘dainty duck’, this has ‘dainty
duke’ – it’s practically a tribute!). It also reminded me of Holofernes’ show
in LLL and the various examples of
‘bad’ poetry in many of the comedies. But apparently it’s all Fletcher
pastiching Shakespeare rather than Shakespeare.
- There is some confusion/debate about whether the jailer’s
daughter joins in with the Morris dance in some capacity, as she goes off-stage
with the bumpkins but it isn’t clear whether she comes back onstage with them
when they return for the dance. I think she shouldn’t.
Scene 6 (Fletch)
Meanwhile, Arcite returns to Palamon with some swords and
armour. They have a chat while they help each other put their armour on, and
exchange compliments on each others’ valour. They have a short fight but before
either of them can do any damage they hear hunting horns and the sound of
hooves. Arcite realises it’s Theseus and co. He recommends Palamon should hide
but Palamon doesn’t want to. Theseus arrives and condemns them for fighting in
his kingdom, which is a capital offence. Palamon tells Theseus everything; that
Arcite is the exiled prisoner, that he escaped from the jail, everything. They
both make it clear that they’re in love with Emilia. She begs Theseus not to
have them executed merely banished, as she doesn’t want them killed for her
sake. But Arcite and Palamon both say they’d rather die than be forced to live
without her. Theseus then asks Emilia to choose between them but she can’t, so
Theseus decides to defer the decision, and tells Arcite and Palamon to come
back in three months with three knights each, when they’ll have a contest to
see who gets to marry Emilia and who has to die.
- The contest is a bizarre kind of Gladiators thing where you have to try to touch a ‘pyramid’ (i.e.
an obelisk) while preventing your opponent from doing so.
- Theseus and co are continuing their hunt, having resumed
it after the Morris dance.
Act 4
Scene 1 (Fletch)
The jailer is informed that he’s been pardoned by Theseus.
That’s the good news. The bad news is that his daughter has gone insane. Her ‘wooer’
– another character without a proper name – reports that he saw her standing in
a pond, clutching some flowers, singing to herself, Ophelia-style. And she’d
have drowned Ophelia-style too, if he hadn’t dragged her out in time. The daughter
is then brought on, rambling about Palamon – who she now believes, in her
madness, to be alive. She’s mentally all at sea, and her father and her wooer play
along, leading her away as though they’re all on a boat.
- This scene mentions Pelops, a mythic character who’d not
heard before, but who seems to have been a prototype Cyberman/Frankenstein’smonster. Cool!
Scene 2 (Shakey rewritten by Fletch?)
Emilia looks at portraits of Palamon and Arcite, and just
can’t decide between them. A gentleman enters to inform her that it’s now
several months later and Palamon and Arcite have returned for their duel,
bringing three knights each. A messenger and Pirithous then launch into three
mind-numbingly tedious descriptions of three of the knights, who are terribly
butch.
- This is the second
occasion where the text contains a lot of Chaucer and is consequently dull.
Scene 3 (Fletch)
The jailer has called a doctor to treat his daughter. The
daughter rambles like she’s Mad Tom in KL
or something. As she is still convinced Palamon lives and is in love with
her, the doctor suggests that her ‘wooer’ should dress up as Palamon and spend
time with her as though he is Palamon, to use ‘falsehood’ to cure the falsehood
of her insanity.
- Oddly, this whole scene is in prose despite featuring a
high-status character. Maybe it was an early draft or written in a rush?
Act 5
Scene 1 (first minute or so by Fletch, rest by Shakey)
Arcite and Palamon (along with their knights) each pray to
Diana in her temple in Athens. After they’re done, Emilia enters and prays too.
- A scene seemingly designed to show off the special effects
of the theatre, with supernatural music, the sound of thunder and battle, doves
appearing out of thin air, and a magic tree rising up through the floor.
Scene 2 (Fletch)
The doctor has dressed the jailer’s daughter’s wooer up as
Palamon. She seems to have been taken in by the deception and believes him to
be Palamon. The doctor tells him to keep up the pretence, even if it means
sleeping with her. ‘Wahey!’ says the wooer. ‘Whoa there!’, says the jailer. The
daughter – who is still in a state of delusion – is then led away by wooer so
that he can shag some sense into her. Then a messenger then in to tell them
that the pyramid-off between Palamon and Arcite has started.
- The dodgy sexual politics recalls TS and TGV along with the
‘bed tricks’ of MM and AW (though in those cases it was a woman
tricking her husband/fiancée into sleeping with her, whereas this is more in
the rape-by-any-other-name The Boat that
Rocked vein. A comedy all about DJs forcing themselves onto underage girls
in the 1960s. What could possibly go wrong? It also brings to mind the end of Double Falsehood where Violante remains
in love with Henriquez after he has raped her (and where he falls in love with
her in the process). So if (as I believe) Double
Falsehood is derived from Cardenio (the
third, lost, Shakespeare/Fletcher collaboration) then we’re not exactly missing
a masterpiece. Indeed, TNK also
shares its problem of attempting to adapt a story to a play by stretching it
out and adding an unrelated subplot, resulting in a play thin on incident and
where the most interesting bits are the sections added by the authors.
Scene 3 (Shakey)
Rather than us getting to see the Arcite vs Palamon contest,
we stay with Emilia as she listens to it from a distance (this is back in the
woods, and in near darkness). She can’t bear to see two (or rather, eight) fellas
fighting over her in the name of love. She hears various sound effects and
eventually a messenger rushes in to tell her that Palamon has won, no, my
mistake, it’s Arcite. Emilia decides this is good news, as she liked Arcite
(she also liked Palamon, so it would’ve been good news either way). Theseus
enters with Arcite and presents Emilia to him (‘Your prize’). Almost as an
afterthought, he orders his men to have Palamon and his three knights put to
death (it wasn’t a duel to the death, you see, just a game of
touch-the-pyramid).
- As mentioned earlier, the decision to put the contest
off-stage is odd, even anticlimactic after it’s long build-up, though I expect
theatrical productions get around this problem by just sticking it on stage
anyway. What’s also strange is the transition from this scene to the next, as
they occur in the same location but scene 4 is approximately an hour later.
Which makes me wonder whether we’re missing a scene with the jailer and his
daughter in which it is established that she has been ‘cured’ (this is
mentioned briefly in scene 4, but in a very perfunctory way bearing in mind how
much of the play has been dedicated to the daughter). So maybe we’re missing a
Fletch scene at this point?
Scene 4 (Shakey)
Palamon is led on with his knights in preparation for their
execution. The jailer pops by to inform Palamon that his (the jailer’s)
daughter is cured and due to be married. Having never shown the slightest
interest in the daughter before, not even having mentioned her, Palamon is
pleased at this news. The executioner raises his axe and then, of course, a
messenger rushes in telling him to stop. Pirithous enters with some good and
bad news. The good news is that Palamon and his knights no longer have to be
executed. The bad news is that this is because Arcite has just been fatally
injured whilst horse-riding. Yes, all those lines about Arcite’s horsemanship
were all a clever set-up! So now Emilia can marry Palamon and honour is satisfied.
Arcite is brought on and tells Palamon he can have Emilia with his blessing. Palamon
muses how awful it is when a babe comes between two bros and leads to one of those
bros dying; ‘That we should things desire which do cost us the loss of our
desire’ i.e. how bad it is that falling in love with Emilia has led to a
situation where he wishes he wasn’t in love with Emilia. Theseus shrugs and
says ‘that’s life’, Diana the god moves in mysterious ways, and says they’ll
all cheer up once Palamon and Emilia are married.
- Pirithous’ description of Arcite’s death is rather lovely,
probably the best bit of writing in the play, with the horse being startled by
sparks created by its own hooves on the cobbles, and a dramatic description of
Arcite struggling to regain control over the animal before it falls on top of
him.
Epilogue (Fletch)
One of the cast comes on stage to apologise about the
ending.
- Genuinely, I think this is what happens, as he addresses
the audience with ‘No man smile? Then it goes hard, I see.’ He then begs the
audience to be nice, bearing in mind their previous good work, or the company
will go out of business and not be able to put on better plays in future.
So there you go. Not a great play, but its shortcomings are
due to its source material not having enough incident to sustain a play, and
due to odd decisions in the adaption (i.e. favouring some dull bits and putting
the exciting bits off-stage). It all feels a bit drawn-out, except for the end,
which is abrupt. The most interesting stuff in it is the stuff regarding the
jailer’s daughter, who is by far the most interesting character in the play,
but it seems we have Fletcher to thank for that, not Chaucer or Shakespeare
(although, as I’ve mentioned, she is basically a dumbed-down copy of Ophelia,
like Falstaff in MW is a dumbed-down
version of the Falstaff of 1H4.)
And there we are. I’ve done all of Shakespeare. At last.
Hooray.
What’s that? More? I hear you crying out for more?
Oh, all right. I’ll do Sir
Thomas More too.