Prisoners Let Loose in a Ballroom: York Shakespeare Project presents Two Noble Kinsmen
Austen meets Sharpe in this Regency-flavoured reduction of Shakespeare and Fletcher’s Two Noble Kinsmen, in which the playtime of performance gives a new lease of life to characters confined by war, law and societal expectations. Director Tom Straszewski brings considerable historical and geographical context to the chaotic happenings of the play to really make it sing. Women tamed and conquered, scorned and used and even driven beyond wit abound in this tragicomic production featuring as part of York’s Feminist Fletcher Festival. Deemed a marinated hangover of A Midsummer Night’s Dream tinged with influences of older, darker tales, Two Noble Kinsmen errs toward ambiguity and unfinished business. Folk flute and floaty dresses mingle with Macbeth-like harbingers, a modest colour palette of cream and dusty navy enhancing the mixture of oppression and vulnerability. The actors look to the audience often, as if prisoners pleading for forgiveness to save themselves from the gallows. Continue reading
