Love's
Labour's Lost
By
William Shakespeare
Directed by Brian B. Crowe
Critical
Reviews
 |
| Ames Adamson. Photo by © Gerry
Goodstein. |
The
Star-Ledger
lauds director Brian B. Crowe "one of the state's most
ingenious directors."
Brian
B. Crowe's "Staging has unerring taste and flourish,
and his melancholy coda puts a serene hold on all the preceding
giddiness with a visually somber reverie."
—Variety
Talkinbroadway.com
hails LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST as "a delightfully conceived
production"
"A
terrific show," raves Theatrescene.net
"Simply
Irresistible Production Turns Bard's Flawed Tale of Sexual
Denial into a Success"
The Star-Ledger
By Peter Filicha
June 14, 2004
Good thing that The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey is performing
in Madison right now, and not in Navarre, Spain during the
reign of King Frederick.
For in "Love's Labour's Lost," the theater's current
offering, Frederick demands that no woman enter his kingdom.
So if Bonnie J. Monte's adventurous company were to play in
his neck of the woods, an entire sex would be prevented from
enjoying this endearing production of the Bard's 1593 comedy.
And that would be a crime.
Granted, "Love's Labour's Lost" is not one of Shakespeare's
Greatest Hits. Considering its plot, this is the play he should
have called "Much Ado about Nothing."
For after Frederick demands of his three favorite lords that
they give up women — and that they greatly curtail their
food consumption and sleep — four ladies come upon the
scene. A second-grader could figure out what will happen in
this second-rate plot.
But for the second consecutive season, the theater has taken
a decidedly minor play (last year, it was "King John")
and has made it seem much better than it actually is.
This time it's director Brian B. Crowe who's refused to treat
a script as if it were flawed. He barrels ahead even through
the dense sections of wordplay that read better than they
come across on stage. (Theatergoers had better remember that
"L" is the Roman numeral for 50 to enjoy one particular
scene.) The evening weighs in at 2:45, and the final scene
may have theatergoers getting ready to applaud the final curtain
only to find there's another speech coming. But that's Shakespeare's
fault, and not Crowe's.
How smart of Crowe, too, to insist that the king's proclamation
— both one giant sheet and many small placards headed
by "NO WOMEN" in enormous type — is everywhere
on the set. That shows how serious Frederick is and what's
at stake. For if a lord brings a woman into the kingdom, it's
off with his tongue.
Leave it to Crowe, one of the state's most ingenious directors,
to find a clever way around a problem that Shakespeare didn't
address. The first time the men encounter the women, they're
not supposed to even give them a glance, but how can they
play the scene if they don't? Crowe knows the answer, and
it's a most felicitous one.
This is not a play with a central character, but an ensemble
show in which everyone gets a moment to shine. Everyone does.
The dashingly handsome Thomas M. Hammond, with a lock of hair
dangling over his forehead like Superman, eases his way through
Berowne, the most skeptical of the lords. Victoria Mack, last
year's Eliza Doolittle, is, happily enough, back as Rosaline,
the lady who's much amused at his struggle. David Furr makes
a refreshingly vigorous king. As the princess he pursues,
Caralyn Kozlowski shows that regals can be regular people,
too. And, in a reverse of what was seen in Elizabethan times,
here's a young woman playing a young man — Molly McCann,
who serves well as an impertinent page.
The productions values are first-rate, too. Brian J. Ruggaber's
unit-set set is functional but ornate. Brenda Dolan's wonderfully
warm lighting beautifully suggests sunny Spain. Kim Gill not
only has provided handsome costumes, but has subtly but surely
color coordinated her two quartets of lovers. Meanwhile, true
lovers of Shakespeare will find this "Love's Labour's
Lost" is worth giving up some food and sleep —
and maybe even some sex, too.
Variety
By Robert L. Daniels
June 28, 2004
The Shakespeare
Theater of New Jersey has launched its 42nd season with Shakespeare's
"Love's Labour's Lost." Handsomely staged by Brian
B. Crowe, the production has a jewel-box glitter and often
bubbles over with broad hilarity.
The Bard's early courtly entertainment of airs and graces
follows the plight of a king and his attending lords who reluctantly
swear off women for a three-year period in order to focus
on their studies. Keeping their vow is not an easy task for
the amorous lads, who are soon visited by a French princess
and her attending ladies-in-waiting. The smitten students
are soon caught up in a mischievous pursuit of love.
Rarely produced Stateside in recent years, "Love's Labour's
Lost" became a charming Miramax film four years ago,
written and directed by Kenneth BranaghKenneth Branagh and
dotted with tunes by Cole Porter, George Gershwin, Jerome
Kern and the like. Here, it's keenly cast with attractive
courtly ladies and noble lords, cunning jesters, dithery curates
and schoolmasters. The ensemble performances are so deliciously
varied that there is nary a lull in the action.
Eric Hoffman is Don Armado, the oafish Spanish braggart who
is the epitome of pomposity as he spouts fractured rhetoric.
The Berowne of Thomas M. Hammond is spirited, handsome and
sharp-witted. David Foubert plays Costard, the boisterous
clown, with scene-stealing abandon. Holofernes, the schoolmaster,
is acted with manic grace by Ames Adamson, and Greg Jackson
as the fussy courtier Boyer is distinctively mannered.
The quartet of sprightly maidens -- played by Caralyn Koslowski,
Victoria Mack (the sweet, mischievous Rosaline), Erin Partin
and Laura A. Simms -- are attractively fetching and coyly
playful.
Crowe has found a fresh point of view. His staging has unerring
taste and flourish, and his melancholy coda puts a serene
hold on all the preceding giddiness with a visually somber
reverie. All of the players handle the verse beautifully,
accenting the play's quick wit and flowery romanticism with
clarity and persuasive elan.
Brian J. Ruggaber has designed an elegant library with stately
marble pillars and book-lined walls. Lavish l8th century threads
of pale pastels and accompanying parasols provide the action
with the flush of springtime.
"Zany
Love's Labour's Lost Opens NJ Shakespeare Theatre
Season "
Excerpted from Talkinbroadway.com
By Bob Rendell
Love's Labour's
Lost is being presented by The Shakespeare Theatre of
New Jersey on the campus of Drew University in Madison as
the opening attraction of its 2004 season in a delightfully
conceived production which makes the most of this minor, relatively
early Shakespearean comedy...
...Director Brian
B. Crowe has successfully taken a wonderfully right-headed
approach to Love's Labour Lost . His players are
dressed in bright, pastel colored variations of frilly clothing
of the Victorian era (the colors of the costumes of each of
the four pair of lovers are color coordinated). The settings,
a palace in a garden and various locations in the garden,
are presented brightly and with relative specificity. Taking
advantage of the fact that only two basic "sets" are needed
to provide the locations, the vague unit set in which we usually
see Shakespeare performed has been excised. The manner in
which a palace library is transformed into gardens is pleasing
and ingenious.
Click here
to read the full review.
Excerpted
from Theatrescene.net
By Simon Saltzman
Madison – It has
been nine years since The Shakespeare Theater of New Jersey
last presented "Love's Labour's Lost." Their labours are not
lost. It is a terrific show. For years considered the Bard's
least admired comedies, this expose of love and courtship
has been slowly coming into its own. Whether by way of director
Brian B. Crowe's respectful and yet resourceful vision or
through our own re-evaluation of the play's artificial comedy
and bittersweet conceits, "Love's Labour's Lost" is now in
shape to be fully admired. Crowe, who in recent seasons impressively
guided "The Tempest," "The Comedy of Errors," as well as the
darker world of Lewis Carroll in "Wonderland (…and what was
found there)," has topped himself in this earnestly romantic,
yet riotously funny, staging of a play that resonates with
faux pomp, inane pretensions and a plot…oh well, it could
be worse.
Click here
to read the full review.
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