What better way to spend a humid summer evening after a hard
day of work than by watching some open air Shakespeare by the river Thames? Using
the quiet and peaceful backdrop of Caversham Court Gardens, Progress Theatre
laid their stage for Shakespeare’s “Love’s Labour’s Lost…And won”. As a twist
on the usual production of “Love’s Labour’s Lost”, the directors have replaced
the original play within a play with “Love’s Labour’s Won”. The only problem is
that “Love’s Labour’s Won” is a lost play although it has been proposed that it
was rewritten into another play. To get around that the directors have chosen
to alternate each night between “The Taming of the Shrew” and “Much Ado about
Nothing”, both frontrunners in the debate over which of Shakespeare’s surviving
plays was originally “Love’s Labour’s Won”.
There are some very strong performances in this production,
most notably from the four main couples. Ferdinand (the King of Navarre where
the story is set) played by Darko Baric is full of good intentions until he
meets and promptly falls in love with, the Princess of France (very well
portrayed by Nanette Naude). His three lords (played by Daryl Penny, Kevin
Copping and Craig Daniels) also fall for the Princess’s ladies (played by
Louise Banks, Eleanor Porrill and Anjali Singh). The performances of Craig
Daniels and Anjali Singh were particularly good, both using expression and body
language as well as diction and projection consistently throughout the play to
convey the meaning of Shakespeare’s language to the audience.
Unfortunately the supporting cast were not as convincing in
my opinion. There were some competent performances from Lauren Gilbert (as Don
Armado’s page) and Emma Wyverne (as Boyet, one of the Princess’s other ladies)
and the “fantastical Spaniard” Don Armado (played by John Gonzalez) had some humorous
moments. It seemed at times that the “fool” Costard was not actually a fool at
all but a rather nasty piece of work who simply fell about and made mistakes because
he was drunk. Whether this was intentional of not, I’m unsure but it was not
the fool’s scenes that brought laughter from the audience.
Rather it was the physical comedy employed by the four
courting couples that provided the humour. I thoroughly enjoyed the scene in
the King’s court when each of the gentlemen suitors believing himself alone began
to compose a letter to his love only to be interrupted and forced to hide by
the approach of the next man. Given the limited set comprising of a few large
(but not large enough to hide a man) chess pieces the King and his lords were
forced to hide in plain sight adding humour to the already amusing attempts at
romantic letter writing.
The humour continues as the men further attempt to woo the
Princess of France and her ladies by disguising themselves. The Ladies are wise
to the men’s tricks though and have fun with them by swapping tokens and
wearing masks so the men woo the wrong ladies. Nanette Naude’s portrayal of the
Princess of France as a clever and quite cynical woman having to bend to
expectations was particularly enjoyable.
Just as the Lords and Ladies are in full swing of teasing
each other they are interrupted by the play within a play, on this occasion “The
Taming of the Shrew”. Whilst the Lords and Ladies retired from the stage into
the audience signalling the start of the “play”, it was still not clear that it
had started. Most confusing was that only Costard (the fool) seemed to adopt a
new character for the play within a play. All the other characters seemed to
remain the same, e.g. Jaquenetta (the country girl) playing Bianca was still
Jaquenetta and Holofernes (the schoolmaster) playing Baptista was still
Holofernes. It may have been that this was supposed to highlight the parallels
between the characters of the two plays but it came across as confused.
The play within a play was cut short by news for the
Princess from home and the four couples are forced to quit their games and
pledge to each other. Again the staging of the couples was excellent with each
moving into prominence when speaking creating a poignant and sombre atmosphere.
The performances were convincing and heartfelt so that as the Princess and her
Ladies took their leave, I really felt their sadness.
This is a light hearted and humorous production about love
and distraction. It is well worth watching and
perfect for a summers evening so
while the weather holds I recommend you get down to Caversham Court Gardens for
Progress Theatre’s production of this less well known Shakespeare play.
Agreed
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