San Diego Reader September 1, 2016 69
Talk the talk
“These are barren tasks, too hard to keep, not to see ladies, study, fast, not sleep.”
T
he Old Globe’s got a charmer on its out- door stage. Director Kathleen Marshall, scenic designer John Lee Beatty, Peter
Golub’s original music, and a uniformly fine cast turn Shakespeare’s Love’s Labor’s Lost into a Greenbelt of Babel. In Shakespeare’s time,
giggling Longaville. But still... Berowne, a young lord, reacts: “These
Navarre was a small kingdom high in the Pyrenees between France and Spain. So small, apparently, that young King Ferdinand can abandon his duties for the next 36 months. Ferdinand and three “fellow scholars” want to found a school akin to Plato’s famous academy. They’ll study so hard they’ll become renowned for their learning and make Navarre “the won- der of the world.” Okay, something’s wrong with this picture.
Shouldn’t study be an end in itself? And acco- lades an afterthought? Isn’t the king putting the report card before the reading list? Second problem: the retreat has rules more
severe than St. Benedict’s: fast one day a week; just one meal per day; sleep only three hours a night; stay far from women. If one comes within a mile of the court, she’ll lose her tongue. The penalty’s just to frighten women away, says a
THEATER JEFF SMITH
are barren tasks, too hard to keep, not to see ladies, study, fast, not sleep.” Plus, the Princess of France fast approaches. She and her reti- nue will put all oaths to the test. At first, Ber- owne sounds like the only male mature enough to greet them. Not so. In the bard’s early com- edy, even Berowne’s got a lot to
learn. You could subtitle the play, the “Taming of the Adolescents.” By the time he wrote Love’s Labor’s Lost,
Shakespeare already paid his dues to tragedy (the gory Titus Andronicus), to comedy (the misogynistic Taming of the Shrew), and to his- tory (the Henry VI cycle). Now the poet wants to strut his stuff: not only to unleash his abili- ties but also to shoot critical carps at literary poseurs. When finally alone, one of the first things
Juliet tells Romeo: cut the purple poeticizing and speak from the heart. It’s as if Juliet stud- ied under the Princess of France. She and her retinue would gladly be woo’d, but not by randy hypocrites who couch their lusts in “taffeta phrases” and “silken terms precise” — and who
You could subtitle Shakespeare's Love's Labor's Lost the "Taming of the Adolescents."
Love’s Labor’s Lost, by William Shakespeare Lowell Davies Festival Stage, Old Globe Theatre, 1363 Old Globe Way, Balboa Park Directed by Kathleen Marshall, cast: Kristen Connolly, Kevin Cahoon, Pascale Armand, Kieran Campion, Greg Hildreth, Patrick Kerr, Jonny Orsini, Jake Millgard, Talley Beth Gale, Daniel Petzold, Triney Sandoval, Ste- phen Spinella, Nathan Whitmer, Kevin Hapso-Koffman, Amy Blackman, Ally Carey, Ajinkya Desai; scenic design, John Lee Beatty; costumes, Michael Krass; lighting, Jason Lyons; sound, Sten Severson; original music, Peter Golub Playing through September 18, Tuesday through Sunday at 8 p.m.;
theoldglobe.org
may not know what real love is. The royal park at Navarre becomes not the
King’s monkish academe, but the Princess of Navarre’s School of Authentic Expression. The
curriculum, says a dismayed Berowne, is “too long for a play.” And not everyone, as the title suggests, may graduate. The “students,” it turns out, are a gaggle of
CRITIC’S CHOICE “A Winner!
“Beautiful! The San Diego Union- Tribune Los Angeles Times By William Shakespeare Directed by Kathleen Marshall Limited Engagement Through September 18
August 14 - September 18 (619) 23-GLOBE (234-5623)
www.TheOldGlobe.org Amy Blackman, Pascale Armand, Kevin Cahoon, Kristen Connolly, and Talley Beth Gale. Photo by Jim Cox.
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