Review: LOVE’S LABOUR’S LOST, RSC
Photo credit: Johan Persson
Love’s Labour’s Lost was political satire about recent historical figures in Shakespeare’s time, but is more often presented as something of a fairytale now, with its tales of princesses, banishment and castles. The Royal Shakespeare Company, who have regularly revived the play despite its unpopularity (most recently presenting it in WWI), have set it this time in a Pacific Island spa, with decided overtones of Love Island.
It’s a play that can take many different interpretations and this setting works, at least for most of the time, to give an entry point for modern audiences. In her first production for the RSC, Emily Burns directs a young cast in a setting which convinces, thanks to the magnificent work of designer Joanna Scotcher. Apart from a brief use of video in the prologue, we are in a colourful world created through three-dimensional sets, staircases, a revolve and some well-used palm trees. Together with the same designer’s costumes, with the princess’s friends looking as though they have just appeared in Heathers and the men clad in sportswear and casual clothes, sometimes matching those worn by some of the press night audience, and at a time when so many stages feature screens, it is good to see a set which offers such opportunities to cast and director.
Love’s Labour’s Lost has some of the most complex and longest speeches in all Shakespeare, and Luke Thompson’s Berowne is more than able to cope with these. He has the all-too-seldom seen ability to speak Shakespeare’s words conversationally but with meaning and diction. As Ferdinand, Abiola Owokoniran is a louche and well-spoken King (or CEO) of Navarre, his performance perhaps influenced by his feted Algernon in a recent Importance of Being Earnest. The bilingual performance from Melanie-Joyce Bermudez also impresses.
Although much of the main plot revolves around the four men who forswear women and the four women who are amused by this, in this production, some of the lesser roles are particularly well-played. Jack Bardoe is an energetic and amusing Don Armado, re-imagined here as a tennis coach at the spa. Also memorable are Nathan Foad as a feckless and off-hand Costard, adept at getting laughs from some of the more humourless word-play in the text, and Jordan Metcalfe as the (mostly) buttoned-up aide to the Princess.
As Holofernes, Tony Gardner may not be the usual schoolmaster figure but he is very funny, particularly when presenting the story of the Nine Worthies. This final play within a play, with its echoes of Pyramus and Thisbe, makes good use of the setting and the characters that have been developed. Emily Burns has directed an enterprising, enjoyable and lively production of this difficult play. She is greatly supported, not just by the designer, but by the music of Paul Englishby and the movement work by Shelley Maxwell.
If the setting convinces at the opening, as the all too familiar young men arrive with their baggage ready for a holiday, it starts to unravel when the plot complexities increase and there is talk of one-year stays or more, and banishment to the forest – not to mention the death of a King. The considerable programme notes suggest links with the Anthropocene and the Tech Bro-lebrity culture, which may not be realised to any great extent in the production, but this remains a colourful and entertaining romp for a summer evening.
**** Four stars
Reviewed by: Chris Abbott
Love’s Labour’s Lost plays at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon until 18 May, with further information here.