Love’s Labour’s Lost (More or Less) ★★

By The Recs SCD 4 weeks ago

Shakespeare’s early comedy Love’s Labour’s Lost finds itself transported to ’90s Ibiza in this “more or less” caveated adaptation.

There’s something of a cultural debate happening at the moment. It centres around various works that are reimaginings of earlier, well-known titles. The recent live-action movie Snow White removes or replaces so much from the iconic 1937 animation, many have asserted that it does not deserve the name. Similarly, there’s much discussion around an upcoming movie adaptation of Wuthering Heights which appears to be taking so many liberties around the essence of the book, people are questioning if it should be allowed to take the title of Emily Brontë’s beloved novel at all.

Which brings us to the latest Stephen Joseph Theatre and Shakespeare North Playhouse production of one of the Bard’s early comedies. Or not. The parenthetical caveat of Love Labour’s Lost (More or Less) is a large red flag what you’re going to get… One of Shakespeare’s early comedies, it is rarely performed – and some may argue, for good reason. Dated literary allusions, linguistic density and the lack of truly interesting characters limit the desire to stage this play. However, this is the piece of which Elizabeth Godber and Nick Lane have chosen to create a “more or less” adaptation.

Images by Patch Dolan

In this “more or less” take, what you definitely have less of is the language of Shakespeare. Much, much less. Most of the text is gone. Some remaining quotes are inexplicably changed. “I would take Love as my prison” becomes “I would take desire as my prisoner”. Others presumably for “comic effect” but when the alteration of ” O, what a scene of foolery have I seen… To see a king transformed to a gnat!” changes gnat to twat, you see the level this is working on.  Instead of the original text, the script substitutes in rhyming couplets of its own – presumably to give this adaptation a veneer of ye olde times. 

The general conceit of the show is that rather than Love’s Labour’s Lost plot – King Ferdinand of Navarre and his three companions vow to abstain from the company of women for three years to devote time to their studies but despite their vow of abstinence, they still fall for the Princess of France and her ladies – this production is reimagined in 1990s Ibiza, where Ferdy is having his stag do. The boys take the same vow of abstinence for three days but this is of course put in peril when the resort in Menorca where the hen do was planned is condemned and the girls end up on the same party island as the boys.

As an idea for a suitable relatively-contemporary setting, ’90s Ibiza is packed with possibilities. Attempting chastity in the capital of hedonism is a delicious conflict waiting to happen… But Love’s Labour’s Lost (More or Less) wouldn’t know hedonism if it licked it. An inflatable penis prop is about as hedonistic as having two flavours of ice cream in the same cone on Scarborough’s South Bay. 

For this kind of comedy to work, it has to play at the speed of a farce, the action needs breakneck speed to give a sense of jeopardy, to give the heady thrill of unfettered Ibiza and to stop you looking for the plot holes. Paul Robinson‘s direction has allowed an already way-too-long script to unfold at such a torpid pace that you find yourself admiring the Mediterranean azure of the tiles of Jess Curtis‘ minimal set. The dramatic momentum is less stag and more stagnant. Subplots multiply, losing the core conundrum of their oaths in a blizzard of letters going to the wrong person. True to the original but whither the 90s Ibiza theme?

The show’s blurb promises belting musical numbers from the era of boy bands and Girl Power. The action does see characters, at various moments, burst into a soundtrack of iconic ’90s tunes. The choices of songs are fantastic but the performances are often so tentative as to rob them of their power. Shania Twain’s Man! I Feel Like A Woman! is too polite and placed when it should be as messy as a hen party in Ibiza. The overwrought Meatloaf anthem I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That) should be filled with comic bombast instead of a restrained whimper. Even the tragic love ballad of Without You is plagued by uncertain harmonies rather than the travails of love. Interrupting proceedings with song is a tried-and-tested way of elevating the emotions and the energy of the piece but you need performers to commit to these larger-than-life moments. 

David Kirkbride
Timothy Adam Lucas

The only performances that stand out from the material are David Kirkbride, whose Armado offers some much needed presence, charisma and spontaneity, and Timothy Adam Lucas, whose Ferdy somehow manages to find a depth and pathos despite the script with which he has to work. 

When the script announces that one of the stags has picked up the wrong bag at the airport and that it is “full of drag stuff”, it’s hardly Chekhov’s gun territory not to expect that the stags will be three “Cher”s later in the show. Blind Date and Stars in their Eyes are crowbarred into proceedings with such cursory preparation, both fall flat, adding neither insight nor power to either the Shakespeare original or the 90s setting. 

The writers’ stated aim to make Love’s Labour’s Lost “accessible to someone watching the show today” fails on all counts. IBS jokes, thinking that men in drag is the punchline, or that references to an electronic rabbit that’s rampant is funny or relevant, in no way brings Shakespeare to life. Love’s Labour’s Lost (More or Less) is a flaccid affair. For a story about the unquenchable yearning of passion, it’s the one quality entirely missing from all the proceedings. Taking all the cachet of a title or intellectual property but leaving audiences with much less rather than more is a trend that needs to stop sooner rather than later!

Being hit by the Vengabus seems like a better option – ★★ 2 stars

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