S. Worthen | Weblog

From up here, we look down on a picnic. Sumptuous fabric is spread out on the stage, weighed down with bowls of fruit and batons of bread. The princess and her ladies laugh and gesture. One rolls two apples across the stage to delighted audience members whose heads and arms show above the stage's lip. By the end of the act, the bread will be in pieces as an all-out food fight breaks out.

Love's Labours Lost is an erratic play. I suspect most of that is in the text itself, although I have not read it (except for a little last-act fact-checking post-play). G. likes Don Armado, but I could decipher barely half of what he was saying from up where we sat above the stage's roof at the Globe. This melancholic drip has the final lines of the play - and I had to look them up afterwards since I couldn't decipher a word of them.

The plot is particularly flimsy, but that didn't mean it didn't have its moments of brilliant delights. The princess and her ladies were wonderful, in wit, in delivery, in most of their body language, and in their gowns. Biron bantered well. Costard was lively. The production made nice use of a pair of fairly lifelike deer puppets, which were a particular highlight.

It was good to see a production at the Globe again, but my heart wasn't fully in the play. I suspect that's the play itself more than the production, but having only seen the one rendition, I can't be certain.