As Shakespeare’s final play, and written in collaboration with John Fletcher, The Two Noble Kinsmen is one of his lesser performed plays today. So much so, that when I told my Shakespeare tutor that I was going to see a student garden production of it, she remarked that she had never seen it live before. At the very least then, the Hertford-Mansfield 2026 garden play (fittingly, a collaboration between colleges just like the playwrights) should be applauded for its originality and ambition in staging this often-forgotten tragicomedy.
As a Prologue in the original text informs us, The Two Noble Kinsmen is an adaptation of a tale originally by Chaucer, ‘The Knight’s Tale’. I have to admit I was surprised that this Prologue was cut from this production – I personally love all forms of peritext, and there is a notable Fletcherian flavour to this one in the text that brings out the play as collaborative. However, we were greeted instead with a choral ensemble, with music composed by Owen Robinson, that did set up the evening for more singing to follow, so I concede they were prioritising atmosphere over meta-textual comment.
An engrossing atmosphere was certainly achieved. The more the play unfolded, the more I realised just how well The Two Noble Kinsmen fits the concept of a garden play, one of the beloved Oxford Trinity specials. For example, one of the lead characters Emilia (Imogen Green) reflects “This garden has a world of pleasures in ’t” – in her flowing, white dress in the beautiful Mansfield gardens, she precisely encapsulates the line. There was an unmistakable May Day echo in the morris-dancing throughout and and at the conclusion. A little later, after sunset, the jailer’s daughter (Paloma Diaz) cries out “Lo, the moon is down, the crickets chirp, the screech owl calls in the dawn” in the darkness; as if on cue, birds chirp in the wilderness behind.
This exploitation of such natural elements, particularly the shift of lighting as evening turned to twilight, was one of my favourite aspects of the production. It also creatively brings out the generic instability of this play; it starts as a comedy in the light, and twists into a tragedy with the dark. Even the artificial lighting utilised in this darker second half, designed by Phoenix Solti, was effective, at one point juxtaposing bright red and blue, which were the colours worn by our two kinsmen respectively, Palamon (Ryan Silien) and Arcite (Nikolas Harhoff-Nagi).
These two titular noble kinsmen are cousins, who fall in love with Princess Emilia while imprisoned in the rival court of Theseus and Hippolyta (the same characters as in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, another garden play classic). This love triangle is then complicated into a square when the jailer’s daughter, who assists the escape of Palamon (Arcite being already lawfully set free), falls in love with him and is driven mad by her unrequited desire. This all results in a competition between the kinsmen for Emilia’s hand in marriage, with a climactic final act in which everyone’s prayers seem to be answered – but both the comic ending of marriage and the tragic ending of death occur.
The more the play unfolded, the more I realised just how well The Two Noble Kinsmen fits the concept of a garden play
The production was most memorable in its comic parts, with a stand out performance from each kinsman. Dragged on in fake chains and peering through the ‘jail’ of a garden archway, Silien as Palamon gave us the epitome of the exaggerated love-at-first-sight trope, quite literally giggling and kicking his feet. His comedic delivery and body language was captivating; he definitely generated the most laughter from the audience. His counterpart Harhoff-Nagi as Arcite, as the more serious brother, gave us a more subtle but equally effective performance – their contrast and chemistry were well cast indeed. When two mugshot printed photographs of the actors were presented in the hands of Emilia and she had to choose between them, I found myself smiling at the modern equivalent of Renaissance portraiture, and how much the scenario resembled making picks on a dating app.
On the more serious front, Green’s Emilia did bring a certain level of genuine emotion to the tragic strands, with impressive monologues throughout. In a similar vein, Diaz as the jailer’s daughter played her ensuing madness very sympathetically, often having to fill the stage on her own. This was sometimes more successful with her singing rather than speaking voice, but perhaps this inconsistency only added to her slightly scatterbrained character. Importantly, these two women embraced at the end of the play and walked off hand in hand, leaving them as the text’s heart rather than the two eponymous men – a triumphant creative decision.
Overall, I left with this feeling: an appreciation of director Annabelle Higgin’s creative vision and the efforts of the cast and crew. With its over-two-hour runtime and the four-shows-in-three-days schedule, so early in the term as well, it was certainly a huge undertaking. At times, the limited rehearsal time showed: unfortunately, some lines fell flat or group scenes like the opening lacked a sense of seamlessness between so many characters on stage. However, it did feel like a breath of fresh air to the saturated Shakespeare garden play scene and I can definitely value the originality, when delivered with confidence. In fact, by the end, I did not even mind when the Epilogue was also switched out, this time to a sarcastic “Are they done with their soppy stuff?” from the schoolmaster (Lily Zhang) – the comedic relief was a welcome conclusion and more representative of where the production excelled on the whole.
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