It has been nine years since The Shakespeare Theater of New Jersey last presented Love's Labour's Lost. Their labours are not lost. It is a terrific show.
For years considered the Bard's least admired comedies, this expose of love and courtship has been slowly coming into its own. Whether by way of director Brian B. Crowe's respectful and yet resourceful vision or through our own re-evaluation of the play's artificial comedy and bittersweet conceits, Love's Labour's Lost is now in shape to be fully admired. Crowe, who in recent seasons impressively guided The Tempest and The Comedy of Errors, as well as the darker world of Lewis Carroll in Wonderland (...and what was found there), has topped himself in this earnestly romantic, yet riotously funny, staging of a play that resonates with faux pomp, inane pretensions and a plot...oh well, it could be worse.
Recently decreed as "a little academe" by King Ferdinand of Navarre, his court has been turned into a world where three young men and the king himself commit to total immersion in a three-year program of concentrated studies, sleeping only three hours a night and fasting, but most importantly living there without setting their eyes on any women. Although the court has been created by Ferdinand to inspire the mind, it unsurprisingly becomes an environment where romance quickly overshadows academic pursuits as well as the vacuous ranting of the village pedant.
The court, its "still and contemplative" red and cool green marble arches handsomely designed by Brian J. Ruggaber, is soon the playground for a quartet of love-smitten swains, each of whom is determined to challenge the absurd rules and also win the love of a lady. Crowe validates the Bard's penchant for mixing silliness and substance with an ease that is a joy to experience. That the play maintains its balance of lightheartedness and self empowered pretense is a credit to Crowe's own dexterity. Given the play's literary affectation, its high-brow iambic pentameter and its even higher-flown buffoonery, Crowe's notion to keep us laughing even as the truths behind the garrulously poetic discourses become more evident and relevant, is commendable.
The central pleasure of the play generally rests with the actor who plays Berowne, the noblest of the three noble attendants to the king. As Berowne, Thomas A Hammond is a fine specimen of mixed emotions, as he commandeers his questionably studious pals from the more innocent pursuits of higher learning to the pursuit of ladies. Aggressively see-sawing between high-strung youthful impetuousness and miraculously matured wisdom, Hammond keeps the play's synthetic adrenaline from subsiding. More steadfastly manipulated by their own immaturity are Berowne's fraternal practitioners -- Longaville (Troy Scarborough), Dumaine (Benjamin Eakeley), and the King of Navarre (David Furr).
It is easy to become smitten by the presence and conduct of the haughty Princess of France (Caralyn Kozlowski). Ostentation reaches its zenith with the "fantastical" speechifying Spaniard Don Adriano de Armado (Eric Hoffman) and Holofernes (Ames Adamson), the foolishly condescending schoolmaster. Molly McCann is delightfully spunky as the too-wise-to-be-as-subservient-as-he-is page to the Spaniard. Designer Kim Gill's 19th century or what have you costumes add much of the fun, particularly the candy-cane striped hose for the Spaniard and three-sizes-too-small pants for Holofernes...which may account for his falsetto speech.
A good test for a play's success with an audience is to hear applause following speeches and exits. This happens frequently and deservedly. Other supporting roles that find favor include David Foubert, as a clownish simpleton; Mandy Olsen, as a Mrs. Lovett-coiffed dairy maid; and Virginia Mack, Erin Partin, Laura A. Simms, as attendants to the princess, and Greg Jackson, as Lord Boyet the ladies stylish Oscar Wilde-ish companion. But, when the play appears to be uncomfortably shifting its gears, it is Crowe who allows Shakespeare's most chaste investigation of love the wide latitude and patience it deserves, as well as the respect it rarely ever gets.
