By Louise
Link: https://www.patreon.com/shakesceneshakespeare
Available until: Unknown
Love’s Labour’s
Lost is supposed to be the first of two
plays, but ironically it was the other one that was lost. Some people think Much
Ado About Nothing is the sequel, but the characters are different and the
set-up is different so that would be very surprising unless Shakespeare started
off writing it one way, only for it to go in a completely different direction.
Love’s Labour’s Lost is unusual for Shakespeare because of the ending. I’ll try to talk about it without giving anything away, but it doesn’t have the ending you’d expect. But I do really like the ending. I like seeing the women making the final decision. It’s like Shakespeare saw past people’s social expectations for gender and made his characters very varied because people are very varied.
I especially like the way he wrote the
Princess of France. She doesn’t even seem to have a first name which could make
her less sympathetic (I think the Queen in Cymbeline is just the Queen
and although she’s a great character, she isn’t a character I sympathise with),
but that doesn’t happen with the Princess of France. It also means we’re always
aware of her status. Some people don’t like books about princesses because they
see them as soppy people who wait to be rescued, but the Princess of France
wouldn’t be like that. If she was kidnapped and a Prince came to rescue her,
she’d probably tell him to go away and stop messing up her escape plan. The
Princess of France likes to be in control.
In this production, Angela Bull plays
the role and she definitely seems like the one in control. Her Princess of
France is intelligent, practical, sensible and a great leader with authority.
She instantly commands respect, but she’s also a lot of fun and has a sense of
humour.
The Princess’ friends are great too.
Two of them took over the roles at short notice, but you would never have
guessed. Larissa Oates is smooth and outwardly polished as Maria, but it’s
clear she enjoys herself just as much as the others. Lucia Lumbard is sweet and
a bit coy as Rosaline and she understandably has her man (and probably all her
audience too) eating out of her hand. Bridget Randolph is quiet and gentle as
Katherine, but she still joins in the fun (and it’s hard to believe she also played
Protheus in The Two Gentlemen of Verona, which we saw a few days ago.
She is so different as Katherine).
The men had a lot to live up to, but
they managed it brilliantly. Georgia Andrews delivers Berowne’s speeches
wonderfully with lots of character, humour and emotion. She put so much energy
into it and keeps it at the same level for more than three hours. She is joined
by Ashleigh Harvey as a boyish Dumane who gives some great reactions to the
madness unfolding around him, Mark Cassidy as a sensible, dignified King of
France who goes mad with love in a really sweet way. But the Princess of France
should not get too confident because he is very good at disguising himself. I
think she has met her match which is a good thing for marriages. Oliver Hewett gives
Longaville a seriousness which is really sweet and helps to make up for his not
so nice moments.
But they are only some of the great
characters in this play. Valentina Vinci is wonderfully flamboyant as Don
Armado, it is really difficult to watch her without smiling. Siegffried
Lowe-Walker is really funny as Boyet and I love his accent and
characterisation. I’d actually forgotten about the character of Curate
Nathaniel, but it will be difficult to forget Tamara Ritthaler in the role, I
think her Nathaniel really likes the sound of his own voice and to be fair Ms
Ritthaler does use her voice really well. So does Dewi Hughes, his Holofernes
really seems to enjoy words and language and he’s very funny.
The whole cast is brilliant and they
all did really well with producing disguises. I really loved the music and
dancing too. I feel with Shakes-Scene that they work really hard and play
really hard and they make sure we have a great time too.
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