Starting Friday night in the Robinson Theater, audiences will get a full glimpse of how themes of love and deception can transcend centuries seamlessly in Shakespeare’s “Love’s Labors Lost.”
“I think it’s very pertinent to our age group,” University student Katie Pelissier, who plays the character of Rosaline, said.
Published in 1598, this was only Shakespeare’s third play out of the 37 he amassed during his 52-year lifespan. Although the play has quite a few Shakespearian traits, the story’s arch is a relatively under-used format; one which director Sara Freeman thought would translate well with University students.
“I love what it asks us to think about in terms of growing up, falling in love, making decisions,” said Freeman, who is an assistant professor within the department of theater at the University. “It’s light-hearted and emotionally acute to what the characters are going through, until the end and it turns in this very serious way.”
The story, which Freeman chose to set in 1914, the year the play was remastered, rather than Shakespeare’s late 1500s, is about the end of a golden era. It focuses on the emotional transformation that coincides with uncontrollable historical occurrences.
“It was a golden age that was leading up for the characters to this great unknown that was scary, but also exciting,” University student Sonya Davis, who plays the princess, said.
In the story, the king of the province of Navarre (Sam Greenspan) and his three lords: Berowne (John Jeffrey), Dumaine (Colin Lawrence) and Longaville (Brian Butterfield), make an oath to scholarly pursuit by giving up women, among other things, for three years. Much like life, their attempts are challenged almost immediately. The Princess of France (Sonya Davis), and the royal party, including Rosaline (Katie Pelissier), Katharine (Hannah Quigg) and Maria (Stephanie Morgan), visit Navarre. Because of the oath, the king does not allow them inside the kingdom. Upon further interaction with the visiting party, each of the men breaks his oath and falls in love: the king with the princess and the three lords with each of the three women.
From there, the audience is introduced to Shakespeare’s take on young love. Through a series of letters, false identities, dress-up deception and other tricks, the men try to gain the women’s affection while the women joke, jostle and play with the men’s minds and hearts. The story to this point is a comedy at its core with humor at almost every point.
“We hardly get the leg up on them at all. It’s embarrassing,” Greenspan, who plays the king, said.
“Up to that point its really like middle schoolers in a camp,” Davis added.
Through fun and games, real emotions are genuinely exchanged as the characters become fond of one another. In a twist at the end of story, the characters are faced with a serious decision about real-life responsibilities.
Although immature romance onset by real-life themes can happen at any point in a lifetime, the themes and the way they are played out fit well with college students. As students attempt to focus on life’s responsibilities, in the college timeline, they may push off these responsibilities to enjoy the one of the last frontiers of being young. In the process, relationships are formed.
“We’re in college and we’re trying to figure out what we’re going to do after college,” Pelissier said.  “If you want to look at it from a strictly romantic perspective, there are couples who are staying together after college and there’s couples who know they’re going their separate way. We’re at this point where we’re making these decisions.”
Getting these themes across for the characters involved in “Love’s Labors Lost” was something that started last spring when the cast was originally formed and will continue until the final curtain drops on November 20.
“We’ve been steeping in this play for the past few months,” Jeffrey, who plays Berowne, said.
“It really eats up your life, in a good way,” Greenspan added.
This process for the cast was attempting to understand their characters and then relating those characters to a modern audience that may have trouble interpreting Shakespeare in its original form.
“It’s a challenge for us in the 21st century because we tend to be subdued and kind of have subtext and play things more calmly than Shakespeare asks us to,” Pelissier said. “The beauty of Shakespeare is it’s all on the page for you. There’s no subtext you have to think about; if they’re madly in love, they’re mad; if they’re battling, they really have swords.”
Projecting each emotion and feeling is something the cast hopes will hit the audience with the intentions that the original story provided.
“If you walk away from it confused, the actors didn’t do enough,” Greenspan said.
On opening night, as well as throughout its run, the audience will be subject to the themes of concepts thought up in the late 1500s, set in 1914 and play out on a college campus full of Macbooks, iPods and touchpad users that still subscribe to the simple theme of love, hope and responsibility.
“I think for the audience, it’s about going on the emotional journey for these people,” Davis said. “It’s more of a reality check and you can make peace with the fact that that’s how life goes sometimes.”
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