Love's Labour's Lost

There are no fewer than four couples who come together in this romance.  Yet Love's Labour's Lost carries a pretty dismal view of love, which is all the more ironic since the agreed-upon chronological ordering of Shakespeare's plays puts this one right before Romeo and Juliet.  The plot is un-complicated - three scholars swear an oath to forgo women while they study, but fail en masse, each falling head-over-heels for one of three ladies who visit their court.  Being intellectuals, they woo with language, each secretly writing poetry for their beloveds.  (This is a source of comedy, but being Shakespeare, the poetry is excellent, and I'm considering using one of the sonnets for our own wedding.)

Language and its manipulators forms the real theme of this play, with lots of witty wordplay that modern readers can only appreciate at a snail's pace.  As is typical with Shakespeare, much of the humor is supposed to come off as pretty bawdy - it's no surprise that these "lofty" minds are not so pure, but here the women also get their share of dirty jokes.  Actually, the women seem to have a better time of it overall in this play, in contrast to the misogeny of comedies like Taming of the Shrew.  One of the more fun things about Love's Labour's Lost is that the men fail entirely at impressing the ladies with cheap tricks, and end up looking like complete idiots.  It's a small wonder that they aren't completely rejected, but instead are forced to hold off for a year before they can get some.  In the end, it doesn't seem very likely that most of these guys will follow through with that, which makes this one of the most unromantic romances ever.  (The only relationship in the play that seems like it will last begins with an unexpected pregnancy - Judd Apatow was clearly taking notes.)

Shakespeare subverts the modern ideals of love that we now trace back to Romeo and Juliet.  In one of the most bizarre monologues, Berowne, who seems to me to be nearly as despicable a protagonist as Richard III, finds being in love to be a complete waste of time - according to him, the woman he loves is ugly, stupid, and probably a slut.

So in that respect the play's interesting.  Unfortunately, all of the confusing wordplay keeps it from being much fun to watch in performance.  Clare and I skipped the much-maligned and extremely loose Kenneth Branagh adaptation - with musical interludes, I kid you not - and resorted once again to the BBC version.  They transplanted the action to an 18th century court, which actually worked quite well, since all of the witty banter is a clear predecessor to Moliere and the like.  Unfortunately, it didn't rescue the play from the issues I mentioned.