Deryn’s Love’s Labour’s Lost Review

Love’s Labour’s Lost by William Shakespeare
The Courtyard Theatre
Stratford – upon – Avon

Friday October 3rd
7.15 pm

“I know what you’re all saying. Love’s Labour’s Lost that’s a funny ending isn’t it, it just stops! Will the boys get the girls….?”

The Shakespeare Code

If I’d thought that Hamlet was a hard play to get my head around then Love’s Labour’s Lost (which from now on I’m going to call LLL…because it saves on typing!) was SO MUCH WORSE!!

I didn’t do quite the level of preparation for this play as I did for Hamlet and managing to get a ticket at the start of the week for this performance did put me under some pressure. I had tried to read it and to be honest hadn’t got to the end.. it wasn’t an easy read written in part in rhyming couplets .. and I was just failing to find it funny at all…even though it is supposed to be a comedy!

So I turned to the trusty BBC (again) and got the DVD and ….well just as with Hamlet it didn’t help at all… although it did enable me to at least get to the end…and that’s a weird one I can tell you…. and I still failed to find the humour in it. I don’t know if the BBC set out to make it as seriously as they could because if they did then I think they succeeded!!

I’m going to do this review like I did for Hamlet…and not go into scene by scene discussions of plot and character motivation – let’s face it all you want to know is how great David was isn’t it????

He was by the way….GREAT of course… but more of that later!!

Love’s Labour’s Lost:

The Plot:

This synopsis is from the RSC programme for the production so I guess I should credit them and although brief tells you all you need to know before you sit down

“The King of Navarre and three of his companions, Berowne, Longaville and Dumaine, swear an oath to dedicate themselves to study for three years, giving up worldly pleasures and in particular the society of women.

Berowne is already sceptical about the conditions of the pact and even before it can be put into effect it is jeopardised by the arrival of the Princess of France and her ladies – in – waiting, in embassy from her bedridden father.

All the men immediately fall in love. Each attempts to hide the fact from the others but all are found out.

The students now plan to court the ladies in disguise, but their plan is discovered and the ladies turn the tables on them. Wearing masks, they trick the men so that each declares love to the wrong lady.

Meanwhile, Don Adriano de Armado, a Spaniard, and his page boy Moth are left in charge of Costard the Swain, who has been arrested after ‘consorting’ with Jaquenetta the dairymaid. However Armado is himself in love with Jaquenetta and entrusts Costard with a love letter to her.

The King asks Armado to prepare an entertainment for the ladies and the fantastical Spaniard enlists the schoolmaster Holofernes, the curate Sir Nathaniel and Constable Dull to help. They present a pageant of the Nine Worthies.”

Boy did those Elizabethans know how to have a good time or what????

This was a preview night that I attended so I don’t know what the press and the critics will make of this production, as a less well known play I doubt it will garner the same level of interest as Hamlet did.

If the director, Gregory Doran (again), has moved the play about (as he did with Hamlet) then I never noticed and it seemed to flow in the same way as my brief remembrances of the BBC version did.

The staging & costumes:

Doran has gone for a more traditional RSC type production for this play and so we have some lovely ornate dresses for the ladies and men in tights!!

Yes… you heard it here first.. men in tights and before you get TOO excited David (and some of the others) wear a sort of half trouser so you only get to see the bottom half of their legs in nice white tights!

I suppose here is as good a place as any to get the other BIG revelation out of the way… David plays the part of Berowne using his natural Scottish accent….and it works for me!!!

Unlike Hamlet (and I will try and stop making analogies to that play but it is difficult) where the stage was bare and props brought on as needed, for LLL the stage was set to represent a country landscape with the back of the stage dominated by a large tree dressed with hangings to represent leaves. The whole of the play was acted out in this landscape, and even though some parts were obviously set indoors it didn’t seem inconceivable that they may have taken place outside.

About 10 minutes before the start time of 7.15pm the actor playing the Lord Dumaine strolls out onto the stage rearranges the cushions and sits down. He is largely ignored by the audience who carry on sitting down and reading their programs. He is soon joined by Longaville, who sits beside him and starts to eat fruit whilst Dumaine plays on a lute like instrument. Still nobody seems to pay them any attention! The two of them are probably acting but it doesn’t really appear so…maybe that’s the sign of a good actor? Berowne then joins his friends and at the sight of David at the back of the stage there is just a moments quietening down in the auditorium until he strolls to the middle of the stage, lies down and puts his hat over his face as if asleep, and then the noise rises again.

Anybody coming in after David had taken to the stage would be hard pressed to recognise him from what you can see. I was just wondering what he was thinking as he was lying there listening to people taking their seats and maybe talking about him…. Maybe that he must remember that it’s NOT ‘To be or not to be’ tonight??

When the lights finally dim and the leaves start to rise the theatre falls silent as we await the arrival of the King of Navarre.

The men’s costumes are not overly elaborate and for the King and his Lords all of them are similar in design. They are a tunic top and what I can only describe as puff ball topped half pants and tights. (Sorry that’s not a very good description but hopefully there will be some production photos out soon so that you can see what I mean). There are no costume changes in the first act and the only additions to them is one short scene where the men add capes to their outfits… which on David was an excellent look!! The colours are mainly gold or white although David is the exception as his costume is blue.

I’m not sure if it was because it was a preview night or whether it is because it is a play that lends itself more readily to applause in between scenes but there were several time during the performance when we applauded – rightly or wrongly. There was also the opportunity for audience participation and a few lines done in the form of a rap song…which may have had the founding fathers of the RSC rolling in their graves but for me just added to the fun of the piece.

It is a comedy and as such was played for laughs particularly the outlandish and slightly camp Armado who had the place in hysterics on more than one occasion. I hadn’t found the humour in the written word but seeing it being acted out in front of me and suddenly it seemed obvious!

There is the obligatory intermission – again like Hamlet – after about an hour and a half and at the end of Act 4 – leaving only the long Act 5 to come. The only criticism I have of this choice was that as the men leave the stage – in the play Berowne is heard to say “Allons…Allons…” which they cut out although maybe that was just one step too close to Doctor Who for the RSC!!!

Again at the start of Act 2 the actors take to the stage whilst the audience are still getting sat down although this again is deliberate as the house lights are still raised.

The costumes are still the same except for the scene in which the Lords disguise themselves as Russians to woo the ladies. Then they change into typical Russian style outfits, red boots, long grey coats, black hats and totally preposterous false beards! They also play this scene in cod Russian accents – except for one of the Lords (not David) who sounds more like he comes from the Indian subcontinent than the Russian Steppes…again I’m pretty sure that this was done for effect and isn’t because the actor can’t do a Russian accent.

The ending of the play is done far more effectively in this production than it appeared to me in either the text or the BBC version – both of which left me thinking…is that it? There is still a feeling of incompleteness but it isn’t so strong as the cast leave one by one until only Berowne and his love Rosalind are left looking longingly at each other and wondering if in a year and a day they will be together again.

The performances:

As you would expect from the RSC the entire company gave excellent performances, even those who had little to do or say did it well!

The women were probably the weakest performances but to be fair I don’t think Shakespeare gave them much to work with, even Mariah Gale (so good in Hamlet) struggled to find her character in places and the others were just not memorable performances…solid but not memorable.

I know this was only the second performance and so I have high hopes that by the time I go again in three weeks time they will have imposed themselves a little more on the production.

As for the men….

Joe Dixon as Armado was the standout performance for me, although he has by far the most flamboyant character to work with and did so to the hilt…he played it almost like a caricature and was brilliant.

Oliver Ford Davies turned in yet another excellent performance as Holofernes (the pedant) – a role that I think is not dissimilar to Polonius which he plays so well in Hamlet. He seems suited to roles of slightly doddery old men who like to play with words!

And now to the man himself…. Because I know that is what you are all really interested in.

David was excellent in another quite demanding role. Berowne has a lot of lines and some quite long speeches to contend with as well as all the physical stuff of climbing up and then clambering around in the tree (when he is hiding from the King and his fellow Lords) and is on stage for most of the play.

The observations I made about him being stage rusty when I reviewed my first trip to Hamlet I can safely say have passed and his expressions and voice can now been seen and heard by everybody. There are no garbled runs of words as he had a tendency to do in Hamlet and so I was never left wondering …’what did he say’.

He plays comedy very well – involving the audience when appropriate and seeming to enjoy himself throughout. His performance is measured and thoughtful and this time I can say that he was the best actor on the stage!!

In Conclusion:

There was different vibe about last night’s show to the one at Hamlet and rightly so because they are two completely different works. I don’t know if it was because it was a preview night or a less well known play or what but the audience seemed different.. obviously there were a lot of David’s fans in but there also seemed to be a lot of people who just like Shakespeare.. and that gave the place a different atmosphere.

To any of you who have tickets to LLL and are maybe (like I was) a little unsure of what to expect and whether or not it will all make sense then I would say… sit back and enjoy the ride… its fun!!

And if like me your next trip is on a day when there are performances of both Hamlet and LL I can’t wait to see the same actors in different roles one after the other!! I have to say that fun though writing these reviews have been I am also looking forward to not having to spend time before, during the interval and in the car before I leave writing down as much as I can remember and just being able to sit back and watch the lovely Mr Tennant do his stuff!!

A final word on the Stage Door experience… I know I was critical of it after Hamlet but I am extremely pleased to report that after LLL it was a much more civilised affair. There were not the same level of people waiting as there had been for Hamlet and I was lucky enough to get right behind a small child who was at the front. I don’t know if was the make up of the audience or the fact it was late and dark that kept the crowds away but something did.

David did come out VERY quickly after the performance and so quite a few people missed him altogether and he did the usual routine of signing along the front row and a few from row two…. Including this time I am EXSTATIC to report ME!!!!! There wasn’t any pushing and shoving like there had been before and as there were a couple of children at the front I was glad about that.

And….. drum roll please…. I’m done.

Hopefully I’ve given those of you who don’t have tickets a flavour of what it was like to be there and for those of you who do have tickets I hope I have whetted your appetite and that even more than you were before you are looking forward to the RSC Company featuring David Tennant in Shakespeare’s comedy – Love’s Labour’s Lost!!