Review: Love’s Labour’s Lost, Cambridge Shakespeare Festival
It’s a perfect rom com set up - four men swear off women for three years so they can concentrate on their studies, only to each fall in love immediately and have to hide the fact or face humiliation.
Love’s Labour’s Lost is one of Shakespeare’s lesser known comedies - rarely performed because it’s verbally quite tricky and, frankly, some of it is in Latin. But its comedy bones are quickly recognisable to audiences and with this production by the Cambridge Shakespeare Festival you can sit back and enjoy the laughs rolling in. No previous knowledge of the play is required.
The story starts in the French kingdom of Navarre where King Ferdinand and his three companions, the Lords Berowne, Dumaine and Longaville, are students of philosophy.
They sign an oath to forgo the company of women for three years to devote time to their studies - and they decide to impose this rule on the rest of the kingdom as well.
Soon after the oath, the Princess of France and her three ladies in waiting - Rosaline, Katharine and Maria - roll into town on a political mission. The king and his lords are immediately lovestruck, there’s some business with mixed up love letters, and at one point the king and his men dress up as “Muscovites” and sing Boney M - definitely a jaw-dropping moment.
The men’s promises are shattered by four witty and beautiful women who are more than a match for their chat and seduction techniques, running rings around all of them.
The lively cast is absolutely excellent, with not a single weak link. The star of the show is Lawrence Howard who plays the charmer Berowne with such swagger - and finger guns! - that we can’t help but root for him to win over the prickly Rosaline, played by Pippa Haddow, who is cool, calculating and too clever for him. Berowne’s head popping out of a tree to spy on the other men as they secretly confessed their affections for the women was a stand out bit of comedy.
It’s great to see Jackson Wright back at the festival as King Ferdinand alongside Alice Gold, who plays the fierce and proud Princess of France. Their verbal jousting - which in other hands may have been hard to follow - was done with zest. The play is wordy, but David Crilly’s direction makes the meaning and sentiment behind the dialogue clear, even when some of the jokes are beyond a modern audience.
Other highlights were the fool Costard (David Gwenter) who stopped to buy a flapjack from a member of the audience with a farthing; the crazy gait of Holofernes (Ellis Reynolds) straight out of the Ministry of Silly Walks; and Gwilym Roberts’ comically dramatic Spaniard, Don Adriano de Armado, who is pursuing Jaquenetta and gets mixed up in the love schemes of the other men. Special mention goes to Lizzie Sharpe, who plays both the seductive Jaquenetta and the booming Yorkshire lawyer Boyet, for flipping so seamlessly between roles.
The women, led by Alice Gold as the Princess of France, were amused by the men’s attempts at seduction but did not seem to return their affections so ardently. The men come across as fools while the women stand back watching with arched eyebrows. Having been filled in on the true historical background to the play I can see why. Director David Crilly explained that the play has an historical source and is based on a real King of Navarre (later Henri IV of France) who was visited by the Princess of France (Margaret of Valois) and her three companions. The ladies were chosen because of their beauty and were trained in the arts of seduction and espionage. They were on a secret mission to acquire Aquitaine from Navarre.
This is hinted at in the production with the heavy scorn with which the women read the men’s love letters and the particular joy they take in tricking the men with their disguises. Women don’t always have the loudest voices in Shakespeare, so it was good to see them being portrayed as more powerful here. The play was written for a private performance for Queen Elizabeth, who would have recognised the real people on which it was based.
The St John’s College Garden setting is a favourite of the festival, with the action taking place around a large tree. It was used to good advantage here with the addition of a bower that allows actors to enter and exit the stage, steps up to a platform so that Berowne can appear within the tree, and a tent in which the ladies are living because they have been banished from the court. The timeless garden helps audiences imagine an historical setting alongside the Tudor costumes.
Love’s Labour’s Lost was an absolute delight from start to finish and a great chance to see a Shakespeare play that rarely gets an outing. And it didn’t rain.
Love’s Labour’s Lost runs at the Cambridge Shakespeare festival until 27 July. The festival runs until 24 August. Tickets: cambridgeshakespeare.com.
