Love’s Labour’s Lost
2011: Dominic Dromgoole

This is the Globe Theatre version of this play. I have occasionally registered some negative opinions about Dominic Dromgoole’s productions of comedies here; this one seems to me at least to be better balanced. It is well acted, and not as weighed down with absurd and protracted (or bawdy) stage business that the play falls behind.

For all its other questionable virtues, this play is indisputably one of Shakespeare’s most musical. It’s almost the diametrical opposite of The Merry Wives of Windsor; almost all the lines are in verse, and many of them are bound together with fanciful rhyme and other figures of sound. It accordingly requires a cast capable of supporting that musicality. The sparring couple — Berowne and Rosaline — have to be particularly adroit, but others cannot lag too far behind. For the most part, I think Dromgoole has found a capable lineup and brought out the lyricism of Shakespeare’s verse.

I am still not a great fan of Michelle Terry’s delivery of her lines: often they come out a bit too clipped and too harsh — but her performance as the Princess of France is more balanced and nuanced than some of the others I have mentioned.

The actual music behind the performance here is not as out of place as in some of Dromgoole’s productions: most of it is Renaissance music, at least, and not mixed up with jazz improv or the like. It also makes much better than average use of the musical numbers that properly appear in the play.

All in all, I think this is one of the better efforts from the Globe, and it handles the various twists and turns of the play with some sensitivity. I can certainly recommend it.

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