LOVE’S LABOUR’S LOST (Shakespeare Happy Hours)****

 

 

By Emma

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3e38CvjFsY

Available until: Unknown

Everyone talks about the sexism of the past (as well as of the present) and they are so right to do that because a lot of things are very wrong. But Shakespeare has written some really great female roles that show women as being intelligent and enterprising and 100% capable of taking care of themselves and the men too.

Often this involves dressing up as men and I do have slightly mixed feelings on that, it’s sad that some women had to pretend to be men in order to get anywhere but it also shows that women can do anything men do and that they do whatever they need to do to achieve their aims.

Love’s Labour’s Lost does things differently. The women spend most of the time being intelligent and enterprising as themselves and when they do disguise themselves, they don’t dress up as men, they dress up as women – each other. It is also the women who make the decision at the end about what will happen next. I think this is great and it shows Shakespeare recognised the potential women had even if general society didn’t.

I think there was also only one woman playing a male role, Paulina Tobar as Don Adriano de Armado. Shakespeare Happy Hours usually does this a lot. This might be because big male roles outnumber the big female roles in most plays but not in Love’s Labour’s Lost. The female roles are so good and so fun so you don’t need to do gender swapping. If a female actor is due a really good role she can have a good female role in this play.

Lots of people have told me about a sequel to this play called Love’s Labour’s Won which seems to have been lost. It makes sense to have a sequel because of the way Love’s Labour’s Lost ends but no one can find any sequel. Some people think the play was written but it was lost. Some people think Much Ado About Nothing is the sequel or like that it started off as a sequel and got changed to a different story with different characters. I’m wondering if maybe there was never a sequel and it was just Shakespeare teasing everyone? Judging from his plays I think that would be so like him. But if we ever have a situation where Love’s Labours is Found I would be really happy to be wrong about that. I love these characters.

I didn’t actually notice this myself because I don’t know the play well enough but the way it is cut is very interesting (Shakespeare Happy Hours cuts their plays to around 90 minutes, this one was 100 minutes). The first 3 acts are done in about half an hour, then there’s over an hour for the others. Act V Scene II is actually Shakespeare’s longest scene ever and you usually wouldn’t cut too much of Act Vs because that is where everything is explained and the characters think “Oh so that’s what was going on!” so it’s natural for most of the cuts to happen early on. But I think halfway through the full play is somewhere in Act IV and that wasn’t the halfway point in this play. I did get quite confused with this play in places even though I enjoyed the individual scenes but usually the Shakespeare Happy Hours cuts make it easier to understand so I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt and say I’m glad they did all the cuts because I’d probably have been even more confused if they hadn’t!

Shakespeare Happy Hours actually cut the very end of the play but it did end on a line that made a brilliant final line and totally fitted in with the fun feeling of most of this play. It’s a really funny play but I think if you make a bargain like the men do at the beginning of the play then obviously the opposite is going to happen!

There are lots of lovely little unexpected moments in this play like Don Adriano and Moth (Andrew Garrett) being in the same house, that is always interesting because it is so unusual. Ella Mock makes some lovely graceful movements as Katherine which show that she is a distinguished person but she is always eating! I don’t think that’s in the play but it gives her character an interesting contrast. The men’s spying scenes are hilarious and it feels so right for the characters. The disguises are brilliant… well actually they’re terrible disguises but in a really good, really funny way and it reminded me of the celebrities who seem to think one accessory can disguise them - except it actually works in Shakespeare!

Christine Penney is an intelligent and decisive Princess of France and the ending is so good, she loves her tricks and jokes but she has a heart. Natasha Magigi is smiley and funny as Rosaline, the sort of person who makes you feel happy just by being around her. Laura Piccoli often plays the really sweet characters but in this play she’s very confident and animated as Maria.

The men are fun too, Tom Kanji is quite fussy as Berowne, he likes to have things sorted out in his mind and it’s great because he can show this quality in a funny way which shows the humour in it but also a serious way that shows he can be quite serious and intelligent when he wants to be.

Dhruv Iyengar is so good at giving his characters quirks that makes them stand out and he does that here too but he also reads love poetry really amazingly with so much feeling. You can tell Montgomery Sutton is higher status than the other characters as the King of France, he has an extra level of stage presence that shows his power. Joel Iwaskiewicz has some great moments as Longaville even when he’s being quiet and just reacting to the others.

The small roles are good too and one thing they often do which I always love is that as well as having their character’s name onscreen they give a short description of the character’s job or personality, Harry Waller has a really funny one for Boyet.

Shakespeare Happy Hours does really good adaptions and this one is great too. I think the length would make them really helpful for like an introduction to the play or a refresher but they’re also really enjoyable as performances and the acting is a really high standard.