Love's Labour's Lost Director and Dramaturg NotesMay 25th 2007 |
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Welcome to the opening season of what we hope will become one of the premier outdoor summer Shakespeare theatre events in the region. In this glorious vineyard setting we have to thank the wisdom and creativity of Cynthia Bohn of Equus Run and Richard St. Peter of Actors Guild of Lexington who brought their resources together to make tonight's enjoyment possible.
We open our first season with one of Shakespeare's earliest comedies, Love's Labour's Lost. People have asked me why, as Artistic Director, I chose this play to start a new project rather than one of the more familiar comedies. There is no easy answer to that question, but one thought keeps coming back. This play contains all the elements that we see explored in the later plays - playful young love, love at first sight, lovers who fall in love with each other's wit - plus disguises, mistaken identity, switched letters, witty fools, dull policemen, fantastic foreigners, country wenches, loud braggarts, pompous schoolmasters, silly parsons. The list goes on. What better play, therefore, to start a new venture, than the play that begins it all and has it all.
On one level this is also a play of the outdoors. The princess is housed in a tent, the court goes hunting, Don Armado inhabits "the park" - so it seems an ideal play for an outdoor setting. On the other hand this play, perhaps more so than any other of Shakespeare's comedies, is not location specific. This is a play of language and of character. We look at the ways the characters play with each other - verbally and physically. Wherever the character is, that is where we are. Location doesn't really matter, not to us, nor to the characters. They don't seem to have any work to do - the King and his companions don't study, the milkmaid doesn't milk cows, the teacher doesn't teach, the parson doesn't preach, the constable doesn't patrol - they are just in a magical land of actors and acting; characters and comedy. Just as we, the audience, are.
For many years the play was ignored. It went largely unperformed during the late 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. During a time when producers were not above giving a play a happy ending to please the audience they found the dark turn at the end of this play too difficult to manage. A comedy should end with a marriage, or several marriages, but this play ends with a promise. However, it is in this, and the other "transformations" in the play that the true magic of the piece comes, and to which I, as a director, am ultimately drawn. We see characters who exhibit amazing verbal dexterity suddenly switch to knock-about comedy. We see characters who are pleasant and loving become vicious critics of the play-within-a-play. We see the most pompous aristocrat turn farmhand for the love of a woman. This play ends with a play ending; with the real world intruding; with the magical evening already becoming a memory, and with the prospect of a long journey home - the performance and the play become one. But the play also ends with the promise of a return, in a year, with a resumption of delights. I hope that you will enjoy the magic we create tonight, that you will have a safe journey home and that you will return in a year to see the promise fulfilled.
Artistic Director
Courtly Romance Inverted:
Notes from the Dramaturg’s Desk
“Come on, then – wear the favours most in sight.”
--Rosaline, V.2
Although the term “courtly love” was not coined until the Victorian era, the heroes and heroines identified with the concept were well known to Shakespeare and his contemporaries. The chivalric deeds, destructive passions, and tragic ends of Tristan and Isolde, Lancelot and Guenevere, and Troilus and Criseyde had been woven into the Elizabethan consciousness by the expert hands of Chretien de Troyes, Sir Thomas Malory, and Geoffrey Chaucer. From their vibrant tapestries, Shakespeare – a skillful artisan himself – pulled many of the threads that would be employed in creating his own masterpieces. Shakespeare’s loom, however, did not form mere copies; instead, it fashioned unique variations on the originals.
In Love’s Labour’s Lost, the well-worn tradition of favour-granting becomes a metaphor for the unique power dynamic that runs throughout the play. In conventional tales of courtly romance, an unattainable lady – often a queen, princess, or other member of the nobility – presented her preferred knight with a token in return for his devoted service. The knight then donned this “favour” – variously a ribbon, handkerchief, or detachable piece of clothing – and thereafter fought in his lady’s honour.
In Shakespeare’s
This upset of conventions – of the customary balance of power between the sexes – did not sit well with all audiences. After an early period of popularity during which it was performed for both Queen Elizabeth I and King James I, Love’s Labour’s Lost all but disappeared from the stage. When the play re-emerged in nineteenth-century theatres, many actor managers utilized strategic cuts and re-written endings to soften and even reverse the gender and power dynamics of Shakespeare’s play. Not until the twentieth century did productions regularly begin embracing the original text again.
Love, mistaken identity, plays-within-plays, and lovers too wise to woo peacefully are all themes that recur throughout the Shakespearean canon; however, many of us have not yet seen these themes played out within the context of this tale. Its long fallow production period allows us to come to the story with fresh eyes. Please sit back and enjoy the colorful patterns and contrasting hues woven into Love’s Labour’s Lost.
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