“Love’s Labor’s Lost” by William Shakespeare
The tongues of mocking wenches are as keen
As is the razor’s edge invisible…
Love’s Labor’s Lost is a bizarre and entertaining play to read. The King of Navarre and three friends vow to study for three years and eschew the company of women. Then the princess of France shows up with three friends. She wants to bargain for war funds and the property of Aquitaine. The King must meet with her, and the men’s strict vow is immediately undone; they fall hopelessly in love with the bewildered women. The men profess romantic love and attempt to trick, charm and woo the women, who see through their schemes. The women toy with the infatuated men, there are plays within a play, then a messenger arrives with sad news for the princess. A typical comedy would end with four (or more) weddings. Instead, LLL ends with a death, and no marriages.
There is an abundance of playful language, puns and malapropism. The play progresses from the men’s idealistic vows of chastity and intellectual study, to their idealization of the women. It becomes grounded in reality, though, with death. The men’s view of women as either goddess or whore is ridiculed, and the women are complex, capable and intelligent. It’s easy to see why many scholars believe this is a proto-feminist text.
I read this play in anticipation of a production of it I hoped to attend. Alas, life intervened, and I wasn’t able to see the play. My dear friend Thalia, instrumental in my adult approach to the Bard, taught me that reading the plays was a two-dimensional endeavor. Reading the play without seeing it performed is not a complete experience. Plays were, and are, meant to be performed and interpreted on stage. The film of LLL is poorly reviewed, so I won’t seek it out. I’ll wait for a production, and hope it’s not too long distant from my reading. For now, I’ll imagine that I could attend this one in the fall, with this geek-fan-favorite actor as Berowne.
July 4th, 2008 at 11:48 am
I had the honor of playing Maria in a college production of this when I was younger. I should read it again; it has been a while - 16 years to be exact!