Emilia and the “Noble” Kinsmen

by Christine Schmidle, Director of Vision and Text, and Interim Executive Director, Flagstaff Shakespeare Festival

In 2023, I directed Flagstaff Shakespeare Festival’s seldom produced The Two Noble Kinsmen by
William Shakespeare and John Fletcher. What started out as a marketing challenge turned out to be an audience favorite! The company even had audience members come to see the production specifically to complete watching the canon.
 
Prepping the script for rehearsals, I noticed how ambivalent both Shakespeare and Fletcher were in their writing of this play. Fletcher more so than Shakespeare, but even Shakespeare kept his own opinion out of the text quite often. Discovering this opened up a lot more ways of understanding and seeing the play than I had originally thought. Emilia grew from an unidentified character to a young Amazonian who very much knew what she wanted throughout the rehearsal process. Surprisingly, Shakespeare and Fletcher‘s words supported that.
 
I had the immense fortune to work as Text Associate on the Shakespeare‘s Globe production of The Two Noble Kinsmen in 2018, directed by Barrie Rutter. This meant going into the FlagShakes production was possibly easier for me than many other directors discovering and directing this play. And yet, working on the play in Flagstaff opened up a whole new level of understanding. FlagShakes prides itself on being an actor led company and I think we discovered more in the rehearsal room because of this model. I don’t think I could have envisioned the feisty but firm interpretation of Emilia that our amazingly talented actor Audrey Young took on in this role. It’s a role that is almost impossible to read, and yet, put her on stage, give her some sass, and you have an Amazonian warrior breaking through the predetermined notions of the male-centric world of Athens.
 
While prepping for the production, I was determined to highlight the transcendence of the ages in Kinsmen. Costume designer Rin Hanovich created different worlds colliding and navigating on stage. I featured Chaucer in a newly added prologue, who appropriately was kept in Medieval costumes, followed by the steampunk nature of Athens. This collided with both the Rocker Babes of the Amazonians and the Adidas-wearing billionaires of Dubai, or rather, Thebes. The last group grounded the whole design: the tragic world of the working class of Athens–the Jailer and, in our case, her entourage – was in more traditional Renaissance costumes. What I liked about Rin’s interpretation was the visualization of the mind sets of these characters. Audiences could tell that both Arcite and Palamon were more interested in the Amazonians because both groups had modern dress, rather than the Jailer’s Daughter in her Renaissance garb. Audiences could also see the struggles of ‘steam punk’ Theseus having to negotiate with his new ‘biker’ bride Hippolyta, and his desire to get that knot tied before she might decide on a new lover. 
 
I thought long and hard about how I wanted to portray Arcite and Palamon. Are these cousins possibly more to each other, lovers even? Besides the incestuous, I actually thought that taking that position would almost make this relationship easier to understand. I went for the harder decision and decided to keep them related and really good friends. But what does this mean, today, in our society? How do you portray a very close friendship between two young men, or rather boys, who have fought with each other countless times, are very comfortable with each other physically, and yet are not lovers? I was glad for the four weeks of rehearsal to establish this bond, and both Marcus Winn (Arcite) and Anthony Veneziano (Palamon) did an excellent job of showing that comfort level of closeness. What they also portrayed well was their constant competitiveness, climaxed in the scene where they are finally both in Emilia’s presence and get to confess their supposed love. ‘Forget I love her?’ says Palamon, and Arcite answers: ‘Though I think / I never shall enjoy her…’ (3.6) Although Emilia is right there in the scene, probably even in front of them, neither Arcite nor Palamon address her directly but are focused on their own competitiveness rather than impressing Emilia herself. What a wonderful and smart detail in this play; thanks Fletcher! 
 
Audrey Young as Emilia gives a detailed view into her perspective of the character: “While Emilia’s opinion and sometimes actual presence, is overlooked by the male characters around her, she still stands strong in her thoughts and opinions. I believe this is best demonstrated in the scene mentioned above, when Arcite and Palamon battle for her hand in marriage. Alone on stage she makes it clear to the audience that she cannot decide between the two men and a little later, in the presence of Theseus, her opinion is still the same. She cannot be swayed by Theseus or her sister when it comes to taking a life simply because two men want her.”
 
In the rehearsal room, we came across this over and over again: Emilia’s words count. We found that Emilia’s line at the very beginning of the play: ‘If you grant not / my sister her petition … from henceforth I’ll not dare / to ask you anything, nor be so hard / ever to take a husband.’ (1.1) resonated through the play. There was a precedent set, something she had set herself and she was bound by her own word. It was those gems that we discovered together that made this play lift off of the page and the audience found joy and relevance in it. The production is “streamable” at flagshakes.org/flagshakes-films/