After we finished reading and discussing The Two Noble Kinsmen, we were given an assignment. We were given certain acts and scenes from the play and instructed to do a rewrite. I was working in a group with Sakile, Meghan, and Danetta. We were given Act I scene 2 and Act 2. The main objective of the project was to try to bring the Two Noble Kinsmen into the twenty first century. We had to decide which characters to keep and which characters to toss, due to some restrictions that we may have.

We decided that we were going to change the play into a teen movie. We came to this decision because there are so many teen movies about unrequited love that we knew that people would be able to relate to it. The movie would be about two teen guys named Palamon and Arcite who are juniors in high school. They are the best of friends and they are the star football players on their high school. We decided to make them best friends, instead of cousins, because we thought it would be more believable. Also we made them football players to further bring the story line into the twenty first century. One day they decide that they no longer want to be on the football team and make a plan to quit. They are all set to quit the team when Valerius says that they can’t. The quarterback of the opposing team has fully recovered from his broken leg and is back on the team. The quarterback is the best quarterback in the county and Palamon and Arcite now that their team won’t be able to win without them. They decide to put their hatred aside for coach Creon and decided to stay on the team for the time being. They played in the football game but sadly the team lost. After the game coach Creon yelled at the boys because he blamed them for losing the game. Palamon and Arcite went off on Coach Creon for yelling at them.

They put both of the boys in detention for their actions. We thought since our movie takes place in a high school detention would be the closest thing to jail. Meanwhile the principal and the suck up were in the principal’s office. The principal decides that it is time for him to retire because he wants to explore different things. He is wary to leave because he doesn’t want his daughter to be left alone in high school with no one to have her back. The suck up promised that it would be his honor to look after his daughter and make sure that she was safe. At that very moment the principal’s daughter walks in and asks why they are talking. The principal shushes and as asks her to go to the detention room to get his jacket and check on Arcite and Palamon. We kind of went back and forth on whether or not to keep the suck up and the jailor daughter. We later decided to keep them because they offer some comic relief. On her way there she passes two girls talking about how sad it is that Arcite and Palamon won’t be able to play football anymore. Arcite and Palamon are discussing their friendship and how much they cared about each other. They are going on and on about how they wouldn’t want to be in detention with anyone but each other. This scene was hard for us as well because we are group of four girls so we have no idea how guys talk when they are alone. We didn’t want this scene to be as mushy as it is in the play so we shortened it quite a bit. As they are proclaiming their love for each other Palamon sees a beautiful girl in a pink dress standing outside. He falls in love with her immediately. It is love at first sight. Soon after Arcite sees her and falls in love with her as well. They start to fight about who gets to date her, even though they don’t even know her let alone her name. Palamon believes since he saw her first he should get dibs on her, while Arcite believes that he should be entitled to her. They go back and forth until they hear someone coming. The principal walks in and says that Arcite’s mother is here to see him and he needs to leave immediately. In the play Arcite gets banished from the kingdom but we didn’t really know how to get Arcite out of detention so we settled on having his mom sign him out.

Arcite’s exit gives Palamon a chance to reflect on life. He is sad that Arcite will have the upper hand because he is leaving. While Arcite is outside he decides to catch up the game instead of going home. He runs into some fans who tell him about a party at Theseus’s house. He isn’t sure if he wants to go but then quickly changes his mind when he finds out Emilia is Theseus’s sister and will be at the party. Once he gets to the party Theseus starts up a conversation with him. They go back and forth and then Pirithous( Theseus best friend) shows Arcite around to meet people. That is when he spots Emilia and strikes up a conversation with her. He realizes shortly after that it is her birthday. The spend the rest of the night talking and he promises to see her again. Meanwhile, the principle’s daughter is hiding in the bushes outside of Palamon’s house professing her unconditional love and desire for him.  Even though it was a debate whether or not to keep the principal’s daughter I think our group had the most fun writing lines for her. We tried to make her character as creepy and borderline psychopathic as possible. I only wish she had more lines.

To sum it all up, during the adaptation of the play we encountered some complications. First off we had a hard time deciding which character’s to keep and which ones to go. We ended keeping most of the characters and their roles in the play were similar. Instead of the Jailor and his daughter it became the principal and his daughter. The wooer became the suck up and the country men became the fans at the football game. The remaining character’s kept their names. We tried to make the rewrite as similar to the original while making it modern. We decided to keep Arcite and Palamon’s name the same to reduce confusion. I think one thing we didn’t realize was how hard it would be to take Shakespeare’s words and put a modern spin to them. We were constantly stuck on how to change certain phrases and characters into modern text. One translation that was particularly hard for us was the initial conversation between Theseus and Arcite. In the original text their language was very flowery and poetic. We soon realized that today in age guys don’t talk to each other like that. We were a group of four girls so we weren’t that familiar with how guys spoke either so we had to make our best guess. I think the one character that we keep the truest to the original was the principal’s daughter. Once we started changing her lines to modern English we realized just how creepy she really is. She is a stalker! Her character definitely is the comic relief in the play and it is easier to see that now. She is the only character that we kept pretty true to the original. We wanted to translate her random speeches to herself as word for word as possible. I don’t think any of us realized how hard this project would be. It’s not easy to convert flowery language into modern teenage slang. Without the flowery language it is simply a story of two best friend’s fight over the same girl. It is merely a story about unrequited love. Looking back I definitely think we made it hard on ourselves by changing the language of the play altogether. The only thing that even remotely lets readers know that this is a Shakespeare play is because we kept the names the same and tried to make it as obvious as possible. Overall this project was definitely an experience and helped me understand what is going on in the play better. We had to know what they were saying to be able to convert it to modern English.