Theatre in Review: Love's Labour's Lost (Public Theater/Delacorte Theater)

	Bryce Pinkham, Colin Donnell, and Lucas Near-Verbrugghe. Photo: Joan Marcus

In 1971, the Public Theater had a big success with Two Gentlemen of Verona -- not the Shakespeare play, but a kicky, thoroughly of-the-moment musical version. John Guare's adaptation preserved the verse dialogue and convoluted plot machinations of the original text; the songs, by Guare and Galt MacDermot, were a sassy mix of jazz, pop, and Latin sounds. The result was a youthful jolt of energy, a summertime celebration of the city's ethnic diversity, a gently self-mocking entertainment that took the audience into its wide embrace.

Now, a mere 42 years later, the Public has done it again, applying the same tactics to another difficult Shakespeare work with equally beguiling results. As reimagined by Alex Timbers (direction and adaptation) and Michael Friedman (music), Shakespeare's cerebral, but sometimes tiresome, high comedy is transmuted into a screwball farce celebrating the joys of being young and on the loose. This is the summer of outrageous comedy in the Delacorte, and this Love's Labour's Lost makes a fitting companion to the delirious revival of The Comedy of Errors seen there in June.

Shakespeare's plot centers on the King of Navarre and his three companions, who plan to abandon the world for three years, immersing themselves in study. ("Our court shall be a little Academe/Still and contemplative in living art.") In Timbers' version, we see the young men placing in a trunk a six-pack of Bud Light, a bong, a video player, and a roll of candy-colored condoms, vowing in song "to renounce the world and live removed from all civilization/For three years of reading/Contemplation, post-structural theory, marathon TED Talks/Uncomfortable bedding, and readings of Elizabethan plays in/The original uncut form without the addition of new and completely unnecessary songs."

The group's shaky resolve is laid out amusingly in the number "Young Men," which establishes the evening's brainy, yet giddy, tone. (As Berowne, the King's best bud, laments, guys in their 20s are supposed to be having sex, getting drunk, and sleeping late, not delving into the likes of Plato or Derrida or Yeats.) Trouble arrives with a quartet of lively young ladies looking to stir things up a little. Leading them is the Princess, who bitterly recalls, "I had a fling with the King"--largely, she admits, to irritate her father. Now she wouldn't mind a little revenge, but first the boys have to be lured out of their monkish seclusion. Rest assured, this battle of the sexes is no contest, and, for the men, the road to romance is paved with mortification.

Actually, the entire show is a comic battle between the Elizabethan world view and slangy contemporary sensibilities, between learned wit and lowdown farce. In the principal subplot, Armado, Shakespeare's "fantastical Spaniard" (Caesar Samayoa, giving the scenery a full dental workout), strains to win over the lusty barmaid Jaquenetta (Rebecca Naomi Jones, poured into a skin-tight dirndl), alternating between the 29th Sonnet ("When, in disgrace with Fortune and men's eyes/I all alone beweep my outcast state...") and a jaw-droppingly vulgar hip-hop ballad. Needless to say, the latter wins out. Instead of dressing like Muscovites, as Shakespeare has it, the men turn up in the guise of "turtleneck-wearing East German performance artists," pausing for a spoof of Robert Wilson stage mannerisms. When the men turn truly desperate, they slip into boy-band mode, trying to win the ladies over with a big-hearted, empty-headed pop ballad. ("Another modulation," shouts Berowne, egging on his comrades. "Another key change!")

Timbers has assembled the right combination of sparkling personalities for this hot-weather charade. Daniel Breaker, equally adept at Elizabethan verse and low comedy, is a fine King, holding on to his dignity by his fingernails, then tossing it away as he launches into a power rock ballad with a member of the audience. Colin Donnell's leading-man looks and light comic touch are ideal for Berowne, who, when faced with a bevy of attractive young things, nervously sings, "I'll just go up, take a cold shower, and curl up in bed with the works of Kierkegaard." As Jaquenetta, Jones cuts through the moonshine, delivering a gimlet-eyed assessment of romance titled "Love's a Gun." (It wouldn't be out of place in "Murder Ballad," in which she so recently appeared.) Patti Murin makes a most authoritative Princess, striding across the stage in perilously high heels and converting iambic pentameter into Valley-girl speak without sacrificing any meaning. Maria Thayer is equally imposing as Rosaline, who captivates Berowne with her no-nonsense manner. As a pair of English-mangling academics (in Timbers' adaptation, they've lost their subplot), Rachel Dratch and Jeff Hiller don't have nearly enough to do, but they're fun to have around anyway.

Friedman's score borrows from any and all available pop styles, slyly inserting his own jokes into the proceedings. Just as Berowne is singing "I would never sing my feelings for a girl in three-quarter time," the music turns into a waltz. In honor of the Public Theater, he finds room for a sly spoof of A Chorus Line's finale. And when an honest-to-God high school band (from MIddletown High School) appears at the finale, Friedman unveils "The Tuba Song," a brassy roof-raiser that somehow seems to be the logical culmination to this madhouse assemblage of gags.

It all unfolds on John Lee Beatty's smashingly designed western resort setting, with a lodge for the men at stage right, an open bar at stage left, and circular flagstone patio in the center. As in The Comedy of Errors, Jeff Croiter's lighting bathes the stage in an array of saturated colors, to excellent effect. The pristine sound, by Acme Sound Partners, guarantees that we can understand every word of the lyrics.

Admittedly, there are moments when the helium-infused atmosphere leads to an excess of light-headedness. Moth, Armado's page (attractively played by Justin Levine, who also co-orchestrated the songs), is given a bizarre ballad about his obsession with felines, a number that seems to exist largely in order to allow Jennifer Moeller, the costume designer, to wickedly spoof John Napier's costumes for Cats. Other of Moeller's costume ideas may be a little too silly -- when baring their romantic feelings, one of the young men appears in full Elizabethan doublet and ruff, while another turns up in fetish gear. (On the whole, her costumes are highly attractive.) The plot remains a frail, spindly thing: The men renounce love and then renounce their renunciation, and that's pretty much it. And the group nature of the enterprise -- you could rename it Four Brides for Four Brothers -- prevents us from ever caring too much about any of the couples. It's hard to imagine Love's Labour's Lost moving to Broadway and winning Tony Awards, as did Two Gentlemen of Verona.

Even so, this giddy take on a problematic classic rarely, if ever, loses its champagne-cocktail fizz. And Timbers works wonders with the abruptly sad ending, which in the original seems to bring the play to a full stop. Here it works to underline the melancholy theme lurking under all the horseplay -- that to be young and in love is both marvelous and evanescent; time has plans for us all. This production may be as fragile as a soap bubble, but how lovely it looks in the moonlight.--David Barbour