Drew Universeity Shakespeare What the Butler Saw Reviews

The Two Noble Kinsmen, King Edward III, and Double Falsehood, presented by Atlanta's New American Shakespeare Tavern (March-June 2011)

Joanne E. Gates
Jacksonville State Academy
jgates@jsu.edu

Joanne E. Gates , "Review of Shakespeare and Fletcher's The 2 Noble Kinsmen, Shakespeare'due south King Edward Iii, and Lewis Theobald'southward Double Falsehood (occasionally attributed to Fletcher and Shakespeare) presented by Atlanta's New American Shakespeare Tavern (March-June 2011)." EMLS 16.one (2012): 18.http://purl.org/emls/16-1/revtav.htm

The Two Noble Kinsmen . Managing director: Troy Willis. Costume Design: �Ann� Carol Butler. Lighting Design: Harley Gould. Fight Director: Drew Reeves. Choreography: Katie Grace Morton. Music Written or Bundled by: Debra Peterson, Clarke Weigle, Stuart McDaniel, Amy Vyas. With Andrew Houchins ( Theseus, Duke of Athens), Drew Reeves (Pirithous, an Athenian General), Daniel Parvis (Palamon), Matt Nitchie (Arcite), Paul Hester (Bavian, Wooer to the Jailer�s Daughter), Winslow Thomas (Jailer/Keeper) Clarke Weigle (Dr.), Nicholas Faircloth (Gerrold, a schoolmaster) Mary Saville (Hippolyta) Kathryn Lawson (Emilia), Amee Vyas (Jailer�south Girl), Stuart McDaniel (Prologue/Epilogue), Debra Peterson (Woman) Eve Butler, Erin Considine, Becky Cormier Finch (3 Queens).

Edward 3. Managing director: Andrew Houchins. Costume Design: Ann� Carol Butler. Lighting Blueprint: Harley Gould. Fight Director: Drew Reeves. With Drew Reeves (Rex Edward III), Matt Felten (Edward, Prince of Wales, his son), John Curran (Lord Audley), Stuart McDaniel (Lodwick, King Edward�s Secretarial assistant), William S. Murphey (John the Second, King of France ), Nicholas Faircloth (Charles, Duke of Normandy, his son), Stephen Hanthorn (Philip, his 2nd son), Josie Burgin Lawson (Philippe, Queen of England), Mary Russell (Countess of Salisbury).

Double Falsehood. Managing director: Andrew Houchins. Costume Designer: Ann� Ballad Butler. Lighting Design: Mary Ruth Ralston. Fight Choreographer: Drew Reeves. With Daniel Parvis (Knuckles Angelo / Master of the Flocks), Jeff Watkins (Citizen), Matt Felten (Roderick/Gerald), Jonathan Horne (Henriquez), Jacob York (Don Bernardo / Shepherd), Kelly Criss (Leonora/Maid / Shepherd), Clarke Weigle (Camillo / 1st Gentleman), Nicholas Faircloth (Julio / Violante�due south Servant), Mary Russell (Violante).

1. The New American Shakespeare Tavern of Atlanta, Georgia, reached its goal of completing performances of Shakespeare's entire 39-play canon on March 17, 2011 with their official opening of Edward Iii, a play yet not included in some editions of the complete works. More than remarkably, the play ran in repertory with The Ii Noble Kinsmen, opening just a week before.� The Tavern claims to be the only American theatre to have accomplished performances of the 39-play canon. This enterprise had begun the previous June with a public find well-nigh a fiscal crisis that led to the application of a $fifty,000 challenge grant; the catechism completion project emerged amid this endeavor to revitalize the financial continuing of the visitor (Rhue). Coming as it did on the heels, more than or less, of Eric Piepenberg's New York Times commodity on those who pursue the completion of a personal canon, the Tavern�s announced project gave me the opportunity to complete my ain 39-play catechism of attendance at performances, having seen Shakespeare at 2 Stratfords, in London, Boston, Minneapolis, New York and New England, and near recently, in Montgomery, Alabama.
2. When the Tavern announced their ambitious project, they had all the same to mount Henry Viii and Timon of Athens. Timon (not seen by this reviewer) ran in November 2010, with Maurice Ralson playing Timon and just 3 other credited roles, the rest assigned to an 8-performer "ensemble" playing multiple parts. More ambitiously, Henry Viii played in repertory with Maxwell Anderson's Anne of the Thousand Days in Oct 2010. At the Henry performances, the audience was greeted with the announcement that the company had completed the traditional thirty-seven play catechism (that is, all plays in the Start Folio, plus Pericles). �Just as Henry required a full commitment to a big cast with very minimal doubling, so besides did the aggressive 2 Noble Kinsmen. It was all the more remarkable, then, that Kinsmen was performed in tandem with the very different yet surprisingly Shakespearean Edward III. �In the midst of preparing this neb, artistic director Jeff Watkins explained after the performance of Double Falsehood, �the company discovered that the Arden Shakespeare serial had published Double Falsehood, and that the iPhone Shakespeare app lists it equally Shakespeare'south fortieth play. [1] Without delay, the Tavern added Double Falsehood to their summer 2011 repertory, aware that the Royal Shakespeare Visitor had also announced their intention to embrace the play (other groups take too staged the work; see Hammond 123-31; 156-8 and Soloski). In rehearsing the play, Watkins explained in his pre-show speech, the visitor came to the conclusion that Double Falsehood was no more than Shakespeare's than the eighteenth century version that Lewis Theobald directed and published (challenge that it was the "lost" Cardenio and that he had surveyed three manuscript copies, one of which was in the "Handwriting of Mr. Downes, the famous Old Prompter"; �(qtd. in Hammond 21). �The Tavern thus considers its merits to have performed the complete canon to be based on the 39-play accomplishment, and in product gave Double Falsehood a brilliant and campy dismissal. Still, given that the Arden Shakespeare series at present includes the play and that notable Shakespearean authorities Gary Taylor and Stephen Greenblatt take been involved in producing their own reconstructed versions of Cardenio, the Tavern's mounting merits some annotate hither.

   

   Fig. 1: The 2 Noble Kinsmen . Arcite�(Matt Nitchie) and Palamon (Daniel Parvis). Photo: Scott King The Ii Noble Kinsmen
   

3. Performing ii of the remaining non-Folio additions to the catechism made for an advisable way to announce the Tavern�due south accomplishment. The Two Noble Kinsmen, securely established equally co-authored by Shakespeare, is a curious blend of Chaucer's The Knight's Tale with a fascinating subplot about a Jailer's Daughter driven mad past unrequited honey for Palamon. This production rightly followed the established production history in giving the Jailer's Daughter (Amee Vyas) both strength and charm. Her gradual descent into madness (with an insane "logic" that rivals Ophelia'due south phase time) and her subsequent recovery by the trick of her Wooer pretending to be Palamon, was performed in such a way as to feel genuinely restorative.
4. The two kinsmen, Palamon and Arcite, were equal centerpieces of the principal plot. In this production, Palamon and Arcite included the audition in their friendship and predicament; many times they took their non exact gestures to the firm for actress effect. For example, when they were brought in on stretchers in their second scene, captive and wounded, Theseus gave the order to treat them well and heal their wounds; in response, they gave each other a triumphal fist-bump. I thought their "toying" with the manacles on their writs a bit overdone (at one bespeak early in their captivity, Arcite slipped one manacle completely off his wrist, made a double-take to the audience, and then slipped information technology dorsum on). As awkward was the Daughter's dependence on i prominent prop, a metal file that seemed uncharacteristically modern. The nigh advisable marking of the cousins' unusual predicament�sworn compatriots until sight of the beautiful Emilia causes their antagonism�came when they brought their differences to the height of a formal competition, Arcite supplying and dressing Palamon in stolen armor. Neither really wanted to defeat the other, so every imaginable hesitation was inserted for comic still tension-filled result. They squared off, about gave it up, touched swords, backed away, came at it again, clanged swords (a solid band of finely burnished steel rang through the theatre and hung in the air) until, just when they had begun to go serious, Theseus and his train appeared and disrupted their cloak-and-dagger bout.
5. The production ran long; with the exception of reducing Palamon and Arcite's knights to two apiece instead of three, the visitor performed the complete text. Specially rewarding was scene iii.5 in which the Schoolmaster and Morris Dancers present their entertainment to Theseus and the royal courtroom. The wonderful choreography and music blended the clumsiness of the "mad equally a March hare" Jailer's Daughter and the countryman in a monkey adjust (the Bavian instructed to "conduct your tail without offence / Or scandal to the ladies" [3.5.35-six]) with a robust and celebratory performance. In this production, the Jailer'due south daughter did not go one of the female dancers needed to complete a missing couple (a possibility hinted at in the text when the dancers lack i of their women [3.five.38] and when a Countryman later says of the Jailer's Daughter, "If nosotros tin can get her dance, we are fabricated over again" [3.five.74]); instead, she was a supportive graphic symbol who handed out the ribbons for the maypole.� The Morris dance and Maypole celebration provided a robust pre-intermission scene.�

   

   Fig. ii: Maypole scene in The Two Noble Kinsmen. Nicholas Faircloth (Gerrold), Amee Vyas (Jailer'south Daughter), Paul Hester (Bavian). Photo: Scott Male monarch

6. Those who have studied or taught the play might take been underwhelmed by the lack of gravitas in this production'due south characterization of Emilia. Kathryn Lawson was elegant in her 2.2 blossom scene with the matronly Debra Peterson a convenient foil as the woman who assists Emilia in gathering flowers. When the focus turned back to Palamon and Arcite and their spat, nosotros knew the main plot of the play was finally engaged. The audience erupted into a perfect, all-comprehending laugh at Palamon's "I saw her kickoff!" Later, however, Emilia's dilemma over the two portraits of the lovers came off as fraught and over-shrill. Lawson'southward portraits of the two kinsmen were tiny lockets on small bondage or ribbons she had draped over the palm of her manus so she could audit and cherish each. Peterson played her soliloquy in scene 4.2, (beginning "Enter Emilia, alone, with two pictures") generally on the footing, agitated and almost writhing. Perhaps, though, there is a point to exist made in the fact that Emilia's desperation over her inability to choose drives her to a madness not unlike the madness of Jailer's daughter who by this point is delusional. Either way, the queen's sister's dignity was restored by the moving last scene.
7. Too, there were strengths amongst the minor diversions elsewhere. Early on in the play, the 3 queens of Thebes chanted and sung their appeal to Theseus, dressed in black and hauntingly solemn and supplicative.� In the scene that begins Act V, the 3 altars of the gods were staged simply, with sound effects only, and a unmarried rose in a vase the only register of Diana's signal to Emilia.� (At that place was no attempt to stage the silvery hind, nor the full rose tree from which a single rose should fall.)� The forcefulness of the cast in the subplot was anchored by the Jailer who stood out specially in the late scenes. When his Daughter grew most delusional, imagining the machinations of a sailing ship, she asks "Where's your compass?" The Jailer affirmed his "Hither" (4.1.143) by pounding his eye and standing house in support of her directions.
8. Many scholars have pointed out the play�southward resonances with Shakespeare's canon: Ophelia is reincarnated as the mad Jailer'due south Daughter, who references Desdemona's willow song; the commoners who grouping to rehearse and so entertain Theseus during wedding festivities seem a revisiting of the aforementioned device from A Midsummer Dark's Dream; the Schoolmaster Gerrold is a comic echo of some other pedant, Holofernes in Love's Labour's Lost. Another close allusion emerged while I witnessed the action for the first time: the Jailer's Girl's concern that a ship in the distance has tumbled on the rocks (scene 3.4) is richly evocative of Miranda's business at the outset of the Tempest. [ii] �When the shipwreck vision re-emerges in her mad scene, and the Jailer's Brother, his Friend and the Wooer assist in getting her under control, they cooperate by complying with her commands to manage a transport that needs steering. Her "Acquit for it, master; / Tack about!" was physicalized as she rode her helpers off, every bit if on a ship. This moment nicely echoed the promise fabricated by the Prologue (effectively highlighted with a gesture past Stuart McDaniel), that the visitor would, if information technology were "too ambitious" to aspire to Chaucer, "tack about / And something practise to save usa" (26-seven); the Prologue'south hand gesture of a tacking ship was thus realized in the group portrait of the Jailer's daughter riding her fashion to safe as the group carrying her tacked in a diagonal weave.
9. Equally restorative was the Jailer's girl's final scene. Clarke Weigle�s over eager and broad comic functioning as the Doc might be thought to be in accordance with the scene every bit written, as he prompts the Wooer to offer sex activity to the Daughter as a curative, while she believes him to be her Palamon. Yet critics find some ambiguity in the text, for the Jailer's Daughter'south last lines are, "Simply you shall not injure me. . . . If you exercise, love, I'll weep" (5.two.110-11).� Amee Vyas convinced her audience that there was one right style to play the resolution, and that was with the sweet comfort that her Wooer (embodied by Paul Hester as a diminutive copy, just her size, of the Palamon of Daniel Parvis) would love her to her satisfaction. The two left the stage enwrapped in each other's arms: he carried her off with her knees encircling his upper trunk, the two kissing wholeheartedly. �

   

   Fig. 3: Amee Vyass every bit Jailer's Daughter, The 2 Noble Kinsmen. Photograph: Scott King

10. Even though the terminal scene contained a rushed and nearly garbled expository speech by Drew Reeves as Pirithous explaining the twist of fate that causes Arcite's horse to autumn on him and crush the victor, the impact of the surprising d�nouement was inappreciably diminished. Especially powerful was the trigger-happy weep of "Concord, Concord, Hold" at the moment that the defeated Palamon was slated to have his caput chopped by an effectively realistic battle axe (five.4.40) � it seemed that all who were backstage were screaming the line, only every bit the axe was fatigued back to strike a blow. Touching stage portraits included Emilia giving Arcite her goodbye kiss and accepting Palamon as the fate the gods decreed. Harold Bloom has argued that Theseus's concluding speech must also be Shakespeare'southward concluding speech for the stage (697, 712-13), rather than the closing lines of The Tempest. Kristen Hall'south programme essay, "Shakespeare'southward Rare Plays" posits the same theory, asking readers whether they concord that Theseus, not Prospero, was awarded "Shakespeare's last grand speech for the stage" (10). Stuart McDaniel so had the unenviable job of holding the audience through the extra-apologetic Epilogue that most editors acknowledge to be Fletcher's. But his clear diction and hostage delivery connected his summary to what the attendees had experienced. Despite the complicated syntax of the eighteen-line epilogue, McDaniel allowed the audience to absorb the sobering finale and then that it could and so advantage the full ensemble for its ambitious undertaking. Edward 3
11. Edward Three leaves the impression of a rare find, a re-discovered play that has very distinct Shakespearean imprints. Nevertheless it presents difficulties in production. Information technology is simpler than nigh of Shakespeare's histories (scholars such as J. J. M. Tobin bespeak out that its lack of a comic subplot is an argument against Shakespeare's authorship; 1733), but its rough edges are glaring. Despite this, the producers at the Tavern stress in their program notes that the early action associated with the wooing of the Countess of Salisbury and the subsequently, mostly boxing action, make a unified play. The 1998 New Cambridge edition of the play, edited past Giorgio Melchiori, is not the just text available; Eric Sams edited the play for Yale University Printing in 1996 and it has also constitute its way into the second editions of Shakespeare's complete works published past Oxford University Press, W. W. Norton and the Riverside Shakespeare. Scholars pursue elaborate give-and-take and phrasing parallels: any half-trained ear volition notice the close emotional link between the Countess of Salisbury sequences and the poet's self criticism and the lure of the "Dark Lady" in the sonnets. The action of the latter part of the play is clumsy for the mature histories yet nevertheless plenty of a rough theatricalization of Holinshed that thematic resonances betwixt this early on history and others ascribed to Shakespeare resonate. On phase, this was particularly apparent in the way in which Male monarch John of France, his sons and couriers were portrayed. �The production proved the visitor'due south facility with Shakespeare�southward history plays and effectively stressed the contrasts between the obviously destined-to-lose French and the noble English, who had touching life stories succinctly embedded in the arc of the boxing sequences. William S. Murphey played the French Male monarch John with just enough seriousness at his own importance that the audition understood him as buffoonish without his overplaying it. A series of iii dire reports from French Heralds was pointedly dramatic, partly due to the fact that the Heralds were each dressed with a giant fleur de lis covering the costume front. Repeatedly, information technology seems, Edward the king challenges his son, Prince Edward, to prevail in an assignment. Whenever uncertainty is expressed, the younger warrior triumphs. The rex withholds knighting him until he has won a boxing, just that feat is efficiently achieved. This production gave solemnity and high ceremony to the application and dressing of Edward in his armor at the conclusion of 3.3, a useful decision, since Edward may be known as "the black Prince," just in that location is little else in the play that suggests he got the name from his black armor.

    

    Fig. iv: Prince Edward (Matt Felten) and King Edward III (Drew Reeves). Photograph: Jeff Watkins

12. Most riveting in a serial of battle schemes is the dramatic exposition depicting the action when the sky is darkened by ravens. This causes the French to cower and the outnumbered English to persevere. Even though he is without enough arrows for ammunition,� Prince Edward vows to brand utilize of "the ground itself," that information technology is "armed with fire-containing flint; command our bows / To bung away their pretty-coloured yew, / And to it with stones." (iv.6.13-sixteen). One versed in the traditional catechism discovers that the themes in the latter office of the play class an of import bridge between the father-son themes of the Henry Vi plays and the mature and multi-layered conflict between Prince Hal and Henry IV. Based on Holinshed and William Painter, the text is ragged and presents no obvious connection to other history plays; yet, managing director Andrew Houchins, in his plan notes, asserts that the chronicle-derived action does contain a strong theme threaded through the incidents that make up the play: repeatedly "a person form one loftier station in life (a King, a father, a Prince) is taught by a person from a lower station (a son, a commoner, a prisoner) what it is to exist noble and honorable in a time of war." Add to this the Countess of Salisbury's dramatic lesson to the honey-smitten King Edward and his Queen'south last act plea for the lives of the French citizens, and i has the play in a nutshell.
13. The preliminary sequence of activeness that is derived from Painter's Palace of Pleasure deals with Edward's sudden fiery passion for the Countess of Salisbury. He has driven the Scottish King David away without a fight, but his hot desire comes out of nowhere (and is echoed elsewhere in Shakespeare by Angelo in Measure for Measure).� The first joint of his desire is resonant of other lovers sick for a lady in early comedies. When Edward attempts to dictate a honey letter to her, the scribe to whom he sighs, Lodwick, over-comically played by Stuart Daniel, reminds u.s. of the Nurse'due south insinuations well-nigh Romeo (or Celia'south jolly cynicism at Rosalind's predicament). All the same the richness of the dear imagery and contortedness of the situation seems to derive from the sonnets. (Edward employs the Countess's father, Warwick, to demand his daughter break her union vows. Warwick agrees with his daughter'south willingness to die rather than submit, condemning the male monarch with a whole line directly echoing sonnet 94: "Lilies that fester odor far worse than weeds" (ii.1.451).� Just the Countess'south ain, assuming, coup de th��tre, comes when she seems to have no other recourse: King Edward insinuates that their dear is one that necessitates the death of both their spouses, so, in this production, Mary Russell every bit the Countess dramatically drew from a concealed holster two huge daggers, one from each hip, proclaiming them to exist her "hymeneals knives: / Have thou the one, and with it kill thy queen, / ... And with this other I'll acceleration my love" (two.2.172-three, 174).� She and so forces the king to surrender his folly by threatening to stab herself. �The sudden resolution of the King's dilemma--complete acceptance of her moral rejection of his effrontery--is every bit much an awkward twist as the manner in which Shakespeare'southward resolution is unlike from his source in the Palace of Pleasance. Yet this production handled the sudden lesson for the Male monarch in a disarming way: he immediately chosen all forward to witness his shame and conversion, and� the earnestness of Drew Reeves' acceptance of his transgression conveyed powerfully his ability to own up to his faults.

    

    Fig. 5: King Edward III. Drew Reeves as the championship character and Mary Russell every bit Countess of Salisbury. Photo: Jeff Watkins����

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14. Any product of even a less familiar play can reveal missed opportunities. The elder knight Audley, played effectively by John Curran and serving every bit Prince Edward'due south mentor throughout, movingly asks to be taken to the rex when he has been wounded and is close to death. Though Audley is present in the final tableau, Shakespeare has not scripted any reunion and this product underplayed his presence. The six citizens of Calais that appeal to Edward's mercy were reduced to ii. However, other opportunities were not missed: Queen Philippe's fifth deed presence is yet some other surprise in the structure of the play, for no mention of her precedes her inflow. Withal Josie Burgin Lawson gave her an effective office in persuading her male monarch Edward to take mercy on the citizens. She later emoted persuasively in anticipating her son'southward defeat and then jubilant his victory.
15. On the whole this production was a solid success. Drew Reeves acquitted himself �admirably equally Edward, later on a weak performance as Pirithous in Kinsmen. Matt Felten as Prince Edward bore a filial resemblance to Reeves and took on the challenges assigned him with powerful assertions that made the play function as a celebration of England's glory.

    

    Fig. 6: Last tableau, Male monarch Edward III. The French princes and King John kneeling; Male monarch Edward, Queen and Prince Edward front right. Photo: Jeff Watkins

    Double Falsehood

16. That the Tavern accomplished its original goal of completing the 39 play catechism and then elected to stage the contested play Double Falsehood as a coda, is a testament to their superlative company style and rich ensemble of performers and directors.
17. The director and ensemble took the approach of letting the play as originally published speak for itself. This is in contrast to Shakespeare scholars Stephen Greenblatt and Gary Taylor, who take each experimented with expanded texts that prepare the play which Lewis Theobald claimed in the 1720s was the lost Shakespeare and Fletcher'southward Cardenio within a synthetic wider context. These adaptations resort to creating something of a frame around the action of the text, either a modern scenario about experiments in rehearsing the apocryphal play, or an endeavor to re-situate the action inside the wider narrative of Don Quixote. Names in these expanded adaptations revert to those in Cervantes, presumably because a brief record ties Shakespeare and Fletcher to a list for the promptbook "The History of Cardenio" in 1653 and because the scholars assume they are being true to Shakespeare in giving the play more than of a framing activity or subplot (Hammond 78-85, 124-31). The Tavern production, past contrast, simplified the activity, sometimes engaged in doubling, and embraced both the Castilian setting of the play and Theobald'south invented names. Thus, this Tavern presentation ignores the Don Quixote connection or any mention of the Cervantes version of the character Cardenio, here and in Theobald rechristened Julio). It follows Theobald�due south plot, in which the prodigal son Henriquez takes advantage of getting his good friend Julio called to court so he tin make arrangements to court Julio'southward lover, Leonora. Meanwhile he takes advantage physically of the commoner Violante. Henriquez'due south older blood brother Roderick manages to sort out the complications --which includes Violante bearded every bit a shepherd and Leonora retreating within a convent--and bring the offending brother to true repentance.

    

    Fig. 7: Jonathan Horne every bit Henriquez in Double Falsehood. Photo: Jeff Watkins

18. The production emphasized artifice. Jonathan Horne played Henriquez with the flare of a Faustian Zorro, dressed in a redlined cape and making honey to his long stemmed red rose when he had no woman handy. The performers of the distressed females, along with others in the bandage, sometimes played their speeches meant for each other in a false pose, one-half-turned to the audition, thus heightening the bogus conventions of the eighteenth century theatre. Less successful for the product's mode were certain decisions in doubling. Most of these choices allowed for servants and lesser roles to be efficiently dispatched, and the shepherd atmosphere of the 2nd half of the product was filled out nicely with effective doubling. However, Duke Angelo (Daniel Parvis) doubled as Main of the Flocks. This character emerges out of the strange tonality of the pastoral and detects the real sex of the bearded shepherd and proceeds to address the "lad" in disguise, Violante, before existence quickly interrupted. Fifty-fifty though Parvis was well enough altered for his 2nd part, the mirroring in the Master of the Flocks of the male parent whose son has besides "violated" Violante made me wonder the doubling was partly intended to underscore the clich�, "Like father, like son." Yet, to his credit, the director dealt with rather than excised the difficulty of this part of the text. The surprise sexual advances were appropriately exaggerated so that we nevertheless knew we were in the comic globe of the play's madcap misadventures.
19. One of the cleverest aspects of this production was that everyone who pronounced the Spanish �Julio� over-pronounced the "h" of the first consonant sound, adding a hard "c" to class "(K)hoooolio," forming a highly entertaining running gag.� Whether lover, enemy, father, or the grapheme referring to himself in the third person, all over-enunciated "Julio" to evidence a rich range of emotions. Just the production fabricated it clear, in Nicholas Faircloth's characterization of the lovable gars who is taken advantage of, that he truly deserved to recover his lady. (Let no production try to rechristen this character Cardenio again!)�
    
    Fig. eight: Nicholas Faircloth as Julio and Kelly Criss as Leonora, also doubling equally Shepherd. Photo: Jeff Watkins
    
20. 1 sight gag too added clarity to the frantic plot. When the action moved to the rural setting for the latter half (acts iv and 5, later the intermission), we "saw" Roderick give Henriquez the idea for infiltrating the convent where Leonora has taken refuge. The brothers did not simply make it at the idea independently, equally the text suggests ("To feign a corpse ... Nosotros must pretend we exercise ship a body / Every bit 'twere to's funeral ... a vacant hearse laissez passer'd by / This for a toll we'll hire, to put our scheme into act"� [iv.2.234-243]) Instead, they really witnessed a expressionless body being carried into the convent on a bier, and the lines they exchanged were supercharged with comic accent. Every bit entertaining for those discovering the play as a new experience were minor roles, especially those of the fathers of the principals. The product permitted Don Bernado all the range of a typical Shakespearean father, misguided in his first instincts and so insisting on his girl Leonora's marriage to Henriquez, simply corrected of his disabuse past the end. Particularly prominent in the myopic male parent category was the interim of� Clarke Weigle as Julio's father Camillo, who was comically crotchety, but --when he discovered his son to have been restored-- effusively gracious.

    

    Fig. 9: 3 fathers of Double Falsehood:

    Don Bernard (Jacob York), Duke Angelo (Daniel Parvis), Camillo (Clarke Weigle). Photo: Jeff Watkins

21. Although the "campsite" of the product style and the wild twists and turns of the plot assured the audience that the performers were in command of their material, information technology would exist hard for any viewer with some experience of the total canon to experience this production and believe the text had origins in Shakespeare. �Every bit such, it contrasts with the unsophisticated popular references to Double Falsehood as a new Shakespeare play that have emerged in the wake of the play�s increasing fame. One troubling development in authorship attribution, one addressed past Artistic Manager Jeff Watkins in his welcome spoken communication to this product, is that applications on portable electronic devices such equally the iPhone and Nook are presenting Double Falsehood as if information technology is Shakespeare, with no front matter, nor any caption of the curious history of its emergence every bit a highly contested lost text, long after previous generations had considered and rejected its condition.

    Fig. x: Climactic activeness: Double Falsehood. Photo: Jeff Watkins Epilogue

22. A word on the performance fashion and temper of the Shakespeare Tavern: A simplified dinner carte du jour, with choices served while going through a deli line, puts this company into the category of �dinner theatre.� However, the discipline of performance venue, the visitor's delivery to an "original practices" performance style, and the dedicated volunteer servers continue the emphasis on the show. This reviewer saw 1 production ii decades ago and recognized its simple yet straightforward arroyo to performing Shakespeare had important merits. But it was a truthful delight to rediscover the company in its vibrant strength in an age when many Shakespeare festivals and companies sprinkle their offerings with so much that is not Shakespeare that it becomes hard to justify their retention of the name. The company is also to be commended for offering Shakespeare to school audiences. (The aforementioned 2010-2011season that completed the catechism with the challenges of Henry Viii, Timon, Kinsmen, Edward III was besides offer Macbeth, Twelfth Night, Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night's Dream, primarily as school matinees.) At the time of writing, the Tavern's next season comes with the proclamation that the company volition repeat their feat of performing the entire canon, this time genre by genre, in rough chronological order, with the early comedies announced as the offset performed. �Given the force of shows in the obscured and marginalized works of the canon, the Tavern makes a meridian destination vacation for those who crave the existent thing--and accept the discernment to appreciate the difference.�

Works Consulted

Notation: act, scene and line references to The Two Noble Kinsmen and Edward 3 conform to Blakemore and Tobin; those to Double Falsehood adapt to Hammond.

• Blossom, Harold. "The Two Noble Kinsmen." Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human being. New York: Riverhead Books, 1998. 693-713.
• Evans, G. Blakemore and J. J. M. Tobin, eds. The Riverside Shakespeare. second. ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997.
• Hall, Kristin. "Shakespeare'south Rare Plays: 2 Noble Kinsmen, Edward Iii�. Plan for The Two Noble Kinsmen and Edward Ii, New American Shakespeare Tavern. March 2011. viii-11.
• Hammond, Brean, ed. Double Falsehood or The Distressed Lovers. Arden Shakespeare. London: Methuen, 2010. �
• Holman, Brusque. "Shakespeare Tavern Sets Record by Completing Bard's Canon." xv Mar. 2011. Creative Loafing Atlanta. Available:<http://clatl.com/atlanta/shakespeare-tavern-sets-records-by completing-the bards-canon/Content?oid=2942870>.
• Melchiori, Giorgio, ed. King Edward III. Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press, 1998.
• New American Shakespeare Tavern (aka) Atlanta Shakespeare Tavern. <http://www.shakespearetavern.com/index >. Website includes cast lists for unabridged 2010-2010 flavour at this folio: <http://www.shakespearetavern.com/index.php?/performances/season_overview/flavor/2010_2011_season/>.
• Piepenberg, Eric. "Quixotes of the Theater, Chasing Complete Works." New York Times. 15. January. 2010. Spider web. <http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/xvi/theater/16completists.html>
• Potter, Lois, ed. The Two Noble Kinsmen. Arden Shakespeare. London: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1997.
• Proudfoot, Richard. "Catechism." In Shakespeare: Text Stage, Canon. Arden Shakespeare. London: Thomson Learning, 2001. Print. 73-96.
• Ruhe, Pierre. "Atlanta Shakespeare Tavern Approaches Bard's Complete Works." Atlanta Journal Constitution. �25 June 2010. Available: Access Atlanta <http://www.accessatlanta.com/atlanta-events/atlanta-shakespeare-tavern-approaches-557451.html>.
• Sams, Eric, ed. Shakespeare'southward Edward Iii. New Oasis: Yale Univ. Press, 1996.
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