Review: Love’s
Labour’s Lost
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| It's Shakespeare, but it's fun! See? His bowtie is untied and everything! |
The Public Theatre’s annual Shakespeare in the Park program
was started with a very simple mission: to provide free Shakespeare to the
entirety of New York City, not just those able to afford the increasingly high
price of theatre tickets. Over the years
this mission has expanded to include revivals of other classic playwrights and
even the occasional musical, with multiple productions eventually transferring
to healthy and critically acclaimed runs on Broadway. This year the Public is using the program to
launch an original musical for only the third time in its history, reuniting
the creative team of the Tony-nominated Bloody
Bloody Andrew Jackson for a reimagining of the Bard’s early comedy Love’s Labour’s Lost. And while the Public is clearly hoping
that the show follows in the footsteps of Two
Gentlemen of Verona and The Mystery
of Edwin Drood, shows that transferred to Broadway and won Best Musical, this
slickly produced new work is in need of at least one major round of rewrites before
being ready for the big leagues.
For those unfamiliar with Shakespeare’s original play (and I
must confess that I was not), the plot concerns the King of Navarre and three
of his noble friends forswearing women and other earthly delights in order to
devote themselves to study and personal betterment. This vow is immediately tested by the arrival
of the Princess of France and her entourage, who have come on behalf of her
father to discuss some financial matters.
In an attempt to keep his vow the King insists the women camp outside
his house rather than enter it, but the noblemen and women soon fall
desperately in love. There is also a
subplot involving a Spanish lothario named Armado who is attempting to woo a
tavern wench named Jaquenetta, and several other periphery characters that seem
to be given a disproportionately large amount of stage time in comparison to
their almost complete irrelevance to the plot.
Since I have neither seen nor read the original Shakespeare
play, I cannot tell if this production’s narrative problems stem from the
original text or from bookwriter/director Alex Timbers’ adaptation of it. But the problems are definitely there, with
multiple characters feeling underwritten and besieged by inconsistent
motivations. The show’s resolution also
isn’t nearly as tidy as the almost painfully thorough denouements Shakespeare
is known for, although the bizarre tonal shift at the play’s end does stem from
the source material. Timbers would have
been better served by cutting several nonessential characters and subplots
during his condensation of the show’s narrative, which would have allowed him
more time to explore the principle characters and sharpen the thematic
parallels between the love story of the nobles and the Armado/Jaquenetta
subplot.
On the positive side, Timbers’ reimagining of the characters
and setting is often ingenious. He has
reset the show in the present day and recast the noblemen and women as Ivy
League college grads. The men’s vow to
devote themselves to further study calls to mind the decision many young people
make to enter grad school rather than confront the harsh realities of adult
life that their education and upbringing has done so little to prepare them
for. It is a crisis that will be
especially familiar to the Millennials in the audience, and makes the play
double as a funhouse commentary on the very real challenges facing today’s
young adults.
Timbers also does an excellent job of blending the
contemporary jargon found in Michael Friedman’s lyrics with the Shakespearean
dialogue used in the book scenes, and does a much better job of integrating
Friedman’s rock-influenced score into the show’s structure than the pair
managed in Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, whose
music often felt like an afterthought.
The score is also much more accomplished than the bare bones affair
Friedman created for Bloody Bloody, although
the composer still doesn’t have a firm grasp on how to use reprises and often
struggles to find appropriate buttons for his sometimes truncated songs.
The slickness of Timbers’ and Friedman’s writing is matched
by the outstanding production design.
John Lee Beaty’s unit set is one of the most visually interesting
constructions the prolific designer has created for the Delacorte stage, and is
perfectly complimented by Jennifer Moeller’s spectacular modern dress costumes. Jeff Croiter beautifully lights all of the
onstage shenanigans, with designs ranging from naturalistic mood lighting to
rock concert razzle dazzle with a pit stop into the world of Eastern European
performance art strobe lights. (And
while we’re on the subject, the deliciously non-sequitur performance art set
piece is easily the highlight of the evening, and one of the most
side-splittingly funny moments of the year.)
It is unfortunate that the performances don’t achieve the
same uniform cohesion as the physical production. Some of the actors do great work and some
struggle unsuccessfully to make their characters pop, which only serves to
highlight the show’s less successful moments.
In general, the women make a greater impression than the men, with Patti
Murin’s indignant valley girl Princess emerging as the most consistently
engaging performance of the evening.
Murin possesses excellent comic timing and a fine voice, while bringing
a depth to the role that almost sells the heavy-handed ending the show is
saddled with. Rebecca Naomi Jones’
Jaquenetta has been gifted with the show’s best song, the smoldering rock
ballad “Love’s a Gun,” and she knocks it out of the part. But most importantly, the women display a
genuine camaraderie and sense of teamwork that is sorely lacking among the men.
Colin Donnell comes across the better than the rest of his
male costars as Berowne, the most conflicted of the four nobles, but Donnell’s
role is more fully developed than most and even at his best he rarely rises
above passable. Daniel Breaker’s King
has his moments, although his characterization also feels unintentionally separate
from the rest of the noblemen. Caesar
Samayoa plays Armado as a dim puppy dog who is far too eager to please, and his
cloyingly indulgent performance will repeatedly test the audience’s
patience. It is disappointing that such
a high profile production ended up with such an uneven cast, and there are
times where it’s obvious the dubious performances are holding the material back
from the greatness it is pursuing.
Despite its many flaws, there is definitely potential in
this material. The writing shows flashes of brilliance
and invention without disrespecting its source material, and the rock score is
generally pleasing to the ear even if it isn’t particularly memorable. Unlike too many new musicals, Lost never feels like it’s overstaying
its welcome, and the intermissionless two hours is just about the perfect
amount of time for it to tell it’s simple but engaging story. It is often beautiful to look at, with the
direction complimenting the design work perfectly. If the cast doesn’t always reach the level
one would hope for, there are certainly more good performances than bad, and
several of the young leads are clearly on the cusp of the next level of
stardom. The show isn’t quite strong
enough to merit a transfer, so anyone who is interested should hurry out and
catch it before it disappears into the balmy summer night.
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