And in case you were wondering where the story comes from, it's very straightforward...Here's how the Arden edition (Lois Potter, editor) introduces it [with some notes]:
"The Two Noble Kinsmen is a Jacobean dramatization of a medieval English tale [Chaucer's Knight's Tale] based on an Italian romance version [Boccaccio's] of a Latin epic about one of the oldest and most tragic Greek legends [wars between Oedipus' tyrant brother Creon and the enlightened Athenian Theseus in Thebes, with some Amazons in the mix]; it has two authors [the Bard and Fletcher] and two heroes [Palamon and Arcite, or, their love object Emilia and the poor Jailer's Daughter who falls in love with Palamon and loses her gourd]."
But most everyone knows that already.
GSP's Record So Far
The Guerrilla Shakespeare Project made a popular and critical splash with its New York debut in summer 2008 of JULIUS CAESAR, with a female Caesar playing on then-current presidential politics. A taut MEASURE FOR MEASURE followed in spring of 2009, creating a world where passion and punishment were bound together, corrupted and, eventually, untied. GSP's earlier productions of the comic TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA, tragic RICHARD III, and contemporary THIS IS OUR YOUTH were presented in Rhode Island. With THE TWO NOBLE KINSMEN, GSP now moves to the challenge and joy of the Shakespearean romance.
Founded in 2005 by actors in the Brown University/Trinity Rep graduate theatre program, the Guerrilla Shakespeare Project fosters a vibrant, passionate, visceral connection between actor and audience to make inventive and immediate American theatre from classical works. Struggling always for simplicity and precision, this gutsy young group promises to make the entertainment and beauty of Shakespeare accessible to all.
