Hi, I’m Blanche and I’m directing The Two Noble Kinsmen.
OK, so you’re in Athens,
which is flash, it’s a bit grabby, it’s
quite macho, very sporty. Two young men: soldiers,
cousins, as close as it’s possible to be,
best friends, soulmates. You have two Amazons,
they’re women who are out of their own country,
they’ve come to Athens because one of them
is married to the Duke. He himself is in a
gay relationship with his best friend, but
they’re getting married anyway. Her sister
is also gay and is still in love with her
best friend who died when they were eleven.
She thinks she’ll never fall in love with
a man. In fact, she knows that, because that’s
what her sexuality is. The two boys are captured
in war and brought to a jail in Athens, and
from that jail they see the Amazon, the sister,
who is not interested in boys. And they fall
instantly in love with her. Because they are
trained soldiers they can’t back down, they’re
fighters, they can’t take second place.
So rather than asking her who she likes, they
decide to fight to the death over her. Then
you also have the jail, with the Jailer’s
Daughter who is hitting 16 and ready to fall
in love. The Jailer’s Daughter is also in
love with one of them. She sets him free,
she breaks him from jail, they both run off
into the woods where they lose each other.
The other boy’s exiled but he comes back
in disguise. So you’ve got these two lads,
who are trying to win the woman they love/kill each other; you’ve got the young girl who
is in love with one of them, who’s lost
in the woods and she’s slowly becoming more
and more distressed and discombobulated as she goes on. She’s tired, she’s dehydrated.
And then you’ve got this crazy bisexual
love triangle which is the base of all of
it. And in the middle, this one woman who
is going “I don’t know who these two strangers
are and I’m not into men anyway.” The
two boys are captured, they are… they should
be put to death, but instead of being put
to death, the Duke decides that the best thing
to do is to make them compete against each
other in a kind of mass destruction, testosterone-fuelled
festival, at the end of which the winner will get the girl. You can tell from this that
it is a deeply macho culture in which women
are not really asked what they think. Nonetheless,
that’s the deal. And I’m gonna stop there
because otherwise I will give you spoilers.
