Love’s Labour’s Lost @ Shakespeare Everywhere
—Sam Lisman
Before seeing Shakespeare Everywhere’s Love’s Labour’s [sic] Lost last Monday night at The Wild Detectives in Dallas, I was joking that LLL is no one’s favorite Shakespeare play. But after seeing this production, while I remain doubtful it will ever overtake Hamlet or R&J, I can no longer state that with certainty. The audience’s laughter and sheer joy at the performance were something to behold.
Don’t get me wrong, I never thought LLL was a bad play, I just didn’t know quite how funny it could be. Director Marcus Stimac does a wonderful job of cutting out the more boring and esoteric parts, and assembling an excellent carful of clowns, which is necessary, as I think this play contains the most clowns of any in Shakespeare. (I’ve never counted clowns before, so don’t quote me on that.)
One of the only two Shakespeare plays that don’t appear to have an antecedent (meaning Shakespeare truly created the plot from thin air), it starts rather oddly. King Ferdinand (Justin Locklear, giving off a decidedly John Cleese-ian air) and three of his buddies have decided, as fellas often do, to devote the next three years of their lives to philosophic study. They plan to limit their sleeping and eating to mere subsistence levels and, most importantly, to abjure the company of women. Entirely unaddressed is: Who will rule the Kingdom of Navarre during this time? (Note: following the reconquest of Iberia from the Moors, but before it became part of Spain, Navarre was a Basque kingdom in the northern region between Spain and France, which often came under the control of those nations. That’s this week’s European history lesson.)
Intense study might not be the worst course of action for King Ferdinand (Locklear), who does not seem intellectually gifted. Nor are two of his cronies, Longaville (Christian Wilson) and Dumaine (Ryan Negron). The fourth, Berowne (Brandon Loera), is clearly the brains of the group. It is he who points out the difficulty of this proposal, especially since the daughter of the French King is about to arrive on a diplomatic mission. In spite of this, the desire for wisdom—or at least for camaraderie among the quartet—is enough to spur them onward.
Keeping them company (and not knowing it’s for comic relief) is the Spaniard, Don Adriano de Armado (the scene-stealing Omar Padilla), who thinks he’s a close friend of the King, but is actually just a source of amusement. In addition, we have Armado’s young Page, Moth (Ciaran Strange), who is much smarter, quicker-witted, and funnier than his employer, and the clever, almost lawyerly swain Costard (Carson Wright), who starts the play in trouble, as he’s been seen with local milkmaid Jaquenetta (Cassie Bann), despite all agreeing to keep away from women.
That vow is put to the test with the arrival of the Princess of France (Whitney Holotik) and her three ladies in waiting, Rosaline (Meagan Harris), Maria (Francine Gonzalez), and Katherine (assistant director Kelsey Poppen, filling in for Marisa Duran in the role). Each of them, coincidentally, has already made the acquaintance of one of the King’s companions. Needless to say, each of the men is smitten by the ladies, just as the King is by the Princess. The French ladies are accompanied by supercilious Boyet (Michael Johnson), a master of putdowns and overly-clever conversation, and an attendant (Levi Brignon, who also plays Mercade, a messenger). Boyet is a match for Moth and Costard: they’re not just the play’s smartest characters, but the ones with the best lines.
As if all this weren’t enough, we have a constable, appropriately named Dull (Ryan Seale), and two more clowns: the schoolteacher Holofernes (Christian Taylor as you’ve never seen him before); Sir Nathanial (Michael Stimac, doubling as the Forester), and the curate (a parish priest or assistant to the priest). They are absolute buffoons.
The King, his cronies, and Armado each set out to secretly woo his particular intended by writing letters—because as we all learned in Richard II, putting it in writing could never, ever go wrong…right? Of course it goes wrong.
If this premise doesn’t thrill you, trust me when I tell you that this very funny cast shines up Shakespeare’s old jokes and makes them sparkle.
I’ll spare you a dissertation on all the familiar plot points we recognize from other Shakespeare plays: the amateurish play performed by local yokels and mocked by the nobility; the couple who yearn for each other, but are too busy making clever comments; the guy whose fancy words don’t mean what he thinks they mean. It’s enough to point out that this was an early play, in which Shakespeare clearly tried out some devices he would return to later.
What’s definitely different and unfamiliar, however, is the absence of a malevolent force or character. There’s no illegitimate brother throwing a monkey wrench, no usurping uncle issuing edicts, no forced marriages or statutory hangings in the offing. What there is, instead, are dancing Russians (excuse me, Muscovites), pedantic scholars, beautiful damsels, immature men, a well-sung Patsy Cline number (replacing Shakespeare’s less than stellar lyrics), and the greatest pajamas you’ve ever seen on stage.
The second of this show’s two nights is this Monday (5/22) at the Deep Ellum Art Company. I’ll be going again; I suggest you be there, too.
And for the record, I would like to remind the good people of Shakespeare Everywhere that we fought a revolution to ensure that an extraneous letter “u” would not be inserted into words such as labor. Noah Webster would not be pleased. ’Murica!
WHEN: May 22 (final performance)
WHERE: Deep Ellum Art Co., 3200 Commerce Street, Dallas
