The process of adapting the Two Noble Kinsmen play proved to be challenging, fun, and educational. Working in a group allowed for many different ideas, and collaboration. Every person in the group brought something different to the table, or played a certain role in the adaptation process. In our adaptation process our initial idea turned out to be drastically different then our final.

In one of our earlier group meetings, we were missing members of the group so our original idea to keep the old Shakespeare language and adapt the play to a modern warfare was only agreed on by part of the group. Sarah, Riddhi, and I thought it would be a good idea to keep the original Shakespeare language so that we did no lose the feel of Shakespeare with a drastic adaptation. However, at our next group meeting the entire group was there and this brought about the addition of more ideas. With all the members in attendance more we had more conversations, and eventually Stuti and Rhea thought about the idea of superheroes. This idea sparked everyone’s interest so we decided that that is what our adaption would be. Since, the new adaption would be a movie based on superheroes, we thought it would be necessary to change the language to modern day language. We thought that because this movie would be targeted at a younger audience, it would be necessary for them to be able to understand the language of Shakespeare, so we adapted the play to a script with easier to understand English for the children. To keep some original Shakespeare we decided to keep the original names from the play; however, we did give Palamon and Arcite super hero names, Pala-man and Arc-man. We made this change because every superhero has to have a cool name. We then assigned Pala-man and Arc-man super powers. Pala-man received super senses. We thought this appropriate, for Pala-man because we viewed him as the more sensitive cousin. For example, Pala-man prayed to the god of love rather then the god of war. We assigned Arc-man the super power of strength for we feel that he is more of of a strong and masculine character. Our group then decided to make Theseus and Creon Mayors of their respected cities.

Throughout this meeting we also discussed further changes we would make to the play. For the prologue, Sarah and I thought that it would be best if we cut it down to just the opening credits of the movie, for it made most sense to our projected audience to just state that this movies was based off of the play “The Two Noble Kinsmen” This idea to cut out the prologue was at first not very well recepted; however, after deeper explanation of our reasoning behind this idea. It was eventually accepted and put into our adaptation.

For adapting the play we separated parts of each scene, and decided that we would each be responsible for adapting our section. I was given the first part of Act one Scene well as well as another part in Act five. In act 1 scene 1 I thought it would be a good idea to cut out the three queens and only have one queen. I reasoned that it was unnecessary to have three queens because one queen can still get the main point across. Also, with one queen it would allow to cut down the cost the would come with having to hire two more actors. The group had no objections to my proposal.

Our adaption continues in our change to the story line to make it more applicable to the superhero movie. Our group decided to completely cut out the sub plot of the jailor’s daughter and the wooer. We concluded that this sub-plot was not necessary to our adaptation, and that it would only distract from the main story line. Further, eliminating the sub-plot would help to maintain the budget, for we would not need more actors or more writers to write that part of the script. We also save drastically from the production process that would come with having to re-create that part of the script. With the removal of the Jailor’s daughter we had to come up with a way in which Arc-man and Pala-man could escape from jail. This is where our story-line change comes into the play. In our adaptation we decided that Arc-man and Pala-man would have previously lost their super powers, and that they are happy just spending their time together. However, just as in the original play, this sense of camaraderie changes upon seeing Emilie. Once each cousin sees the beautiful Emilie something forms in them and their love for her invokes their superpowers to come back. This allows for Arc-man to escape from jail using his super senses and “charming” personality.

We continued the adaptation with Act five. This act consists of four scenes, the prayers, the wooer and the jailor’s daughter, the fight scene, and the conclusion. In act five we removed scene two due to the removal of the jailor’s daughter from our adaptation. We decided to keep the prayer scene because we felt that this part was very important to the original play. In fact, we actually placed greater emphasis on the prayers, by tying it into the conclusion. In the conclusion we made it clear that the reasons for Pala-man wining Emilie is because he prayed to the god of love, he prayed to win the girl; whereas, Arc-man prayed to the god of war, he prayed to win the battle. Emilie prayed to the god’s for the best man to win. We took this in the context that the man who loves her most will win. We put the conclusion into the hands of the gods. We also made changes in the fight scene in that Arc-man and Pala-man use their super powers to fight rather than normal human strength.

Overall, the editing project proved to be difficult it was hard to continue to change ideas and concepts. However, I am pleased with our outcome. The project was challenging in deciphering between what language is important and necessary to keep and what isn’t. Further, writing in parts also proved to be difficult, especially because we each took different parts in modernizing the language, we each had different takes on what the language meant and how it should flow together. This adaptation project has given me great respect for Shakespeare and Fletcher, for I now know how difficult it is to actually adapt a work.