Love’s Labour’s Lost by Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey (review)

In this production of Love’s Labour’s Lost, director Brian Crowe utilized the outdoor setting to create a vibrant, fun-filled performance that created an intimacy with the audience, especially when the characters came forward directly to address the theatergoers. His production focused on the power of love, unrealistic goals versus realistic ones, and the comedic aspects of the text.

Tall conifers and the sky framed the set’s back wall of eight large pegboard sheets placed in a zigzag pattern, whose 140,000 holes were filled with light and dark green tulle to create diamond patterns suggesting shrubbery. Light and dark green squares formed the semicircular floor, while at stage left stood an elevated marble platform. The props were three stone planters each containing a small tree with a spherical crown, two stone benches, and a podium. At stage right, a low stone wall encircled a flower bed in which stood a statue of Cupid poised to shoot his arrow.

Unlike Shakespeare’s text, which opens with just the young nobles, Crowe staged the opening pledge-signing scene with elaborate pomp and ceremony as eighteenth-century music played and a beaming and proud Holofernes and Nathaniel, in black academic regalia, entered accompanied by four pages in white wigs, white shirts, black vests, and breeches. Although Holofernes had no lines, he was clearly elated with his accomplishment of convincing the nobles to join his academy. Holofernes’s four new scholars wore white shirts, embroidered satin waistcoats, breeches, and shoes. The King, who also wore a red robe, signed the pledge and offered his quill pen to Longaville and then to Dumaine. As each signed, Berowne stood aside contemplating the absurd situation. With a twinkle in his eye and a bemused expression, he reluctantly accepted the unrealistic three-year oath to avoid women, to study, to sleep three hours per night, to eat one meal a day, and to fast one day each week. To signify their new roles, the young men donned academic robes and took up brown leather-bound volumes. All then exited except the scholars, who attempted to study. Their exaggerated yawns, foot-tapping, and annoyance with each other’s mannerisms soon prompted Berowne to ask if there were no amusements for them. These then arrived in the form of Don Armado, the flamboyant Spaniard attired in a military uniform, a red cape, black boots, and a bicorn; Costard, the bumpkin; and Jaquenetta, the wench, all of whom were under Cupid’s spell. Jeffrey Bender, as Armado, exploited the opportunities his character’s lines offered, emphasizing the elaborate linguistic flourishes and inappropriate usages that Shakespeare employed to ridicule those who distorted the language.

Any outdoor theater has its challenges, and additional comedy came from the actors’ response to being in the local airport’s flight path. Whenever a plane flew overhead and an actor was speaking, he stopped, lifted his arm to the sky, and yelled “Cupid!” A sign then appeared above the rear wall proclaiming, “Navarre Airlines presents Cupid’s Relay...