Shakespeare: Love's Labour's Lost Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		1.0
Overall		4.0

Shakespeare: Love's Labour's Lost Blu-ray Movie Review

Love's labours aren't the only things that are often lost in this play.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman October 4, 2010

Anyone who has struggled through reading a Shakespeare play, dictionary in one hand, magnifying glass in the other to decipher the often word by word footnotes that accompany the best annotated editions of the Bard’s oeuvre, knows what a daunting task tackling even the most familiar pieces can be. It sometimes gets even worse watching a Shakespeare play, where resorting to references is usually a bit harder (at least if you don’t want disapproving stares from your fellow audience members). Shakespeare was such a weaver of often arcane language, not to mention the coiner of many a new word himself, that watching, or even listening, to some plays becomes a trial of gibberish. That situation is probably no place more problematic than in Love’s Labour’s Lost, a play which actually parodies flowery language, making those high-falutin’ intelligentsia the butt of most of the play’s jokes. Unfortunately, those jokes are often delivered in completely enigmatic English, that is when the play isn’t resorting to large swaths of Latin. Were Elizabethans really that much better educated than modern day audiences? Of course not, but it’s undeniable that there probably were audience members back in the day who more easily caught the multilingual strands of Shakespeare’s obfuscations more easily than 21st century theatergoers can.

Teenyboppers (are there still such things?) who are enamored of the Jonas Brothers and their “purity rings” may well have at least a tangential “hook” into understanding Love’s Labour’s Lost, for the play hinges on a vow Ferdinand, The King of Navarre (Philip Cumbus), and three of his closest courtier Lord friends, Berowne (Trystan Gravelle), Longaville (William Mannering) and Dumaine (Jack Farthing), make. The quartet agrees to three years of study, which includes “abstinence” and, one supposes in a Seinfeldian way, to “mastery of their dominion.” Their entertainment, such as it is, during this sexual exile will have to come from Don Armado (Paul Ready), a Spaniard completely full of himself, and Costard (Fergal McElherron), a sort of less threatening Caliban type. Of course the best laid (so to speak) plans of men are often rent asunder, and in Shakespeare, one can virtually count on it. Moments after the King and his Lords sign their vow, they remember they’re about to be visited by a bevy of beautiful women from France, including a Princess (Michelle Terry) and three of her Lady courtiers, Rosaline (Thomasin Rand), Katharine (Siân Robins-Grace) and Maria (Jade Anouka). Lovers of Shakespeare’s labyrinthine comedies will have already guessed that a convoluted series of mixups and confused identities ensues, as the King and his Lords attempt to renege on their promise and woo the Princess and her Ladies.

Love’s Labour’s Lost premiered around 1595, prior to the construction of the original Globe, and the reconstructed Globe actually forsook this play for many years, probably due to its incredibly complex language which tends to be confounding and off-putting to modern day audiences. Setting aside the play’s problems with regard to easy accessibility and comprehensibility for a moment, this revival (which toured the United States as well) of director Dominic Dromgoole’s 2007 Globe presentation is a lushly romantic and often extremely boisterous affair which offers visual delights aplenty while keeping a forward momentum absolutely necessary to forestall the audience’s quite easily understandable confusion at times. With gorgeous sets and costumes by Jonathan Fensom and some lovely period inspired music provided by composer Claire Van Kampen, this Love’s Labour’s Lost is a feast for the eyes and ears, if it at the same time often runs rings around the rational mind.

The play itself is certainly a knottier problem, though how the inherent problems in a work this linguistically complex could be ameliorated is perhaps unsolvable. The actors here are perfectly adroit in the often bizarre combinations of puns and Latin quotations, so that at least the purely experiential phenomenon of hearing this redolent language becomes almost hedonistic at times. Ready’s Don Armado is probably the most easily accessible comic performance in the play, no doubt because the character itself is a stuck up buffoon whose type still populates even lowbrow (perhaps especially lowbrow) comedies to this day. But there are some very nice and nuanced moments from Cumbus and Terry as well as the supporting cast. The audience may in fact never be entirely sure of what’s being said, but it’s to the credit of Dromgoole and his cast that the actors seem to understand the nooks and crannies of this most intricately worded of Shakespeare’s comedies.

The charmingly intricate yet open stage of the Globe opens the play up, giving several lines a literally objective reality and irony, as is well pointed out in the Blu-ray's liner notes. Getting up close and personal with the audience also helps gives Love's Labour's Lost an immediacy that the arcane language can sometimes work against, actually creating distance between the players and the audience. It's to Dromgoole's credit, then, that while not always immediately comprehensible, this Love's Labour's Lost is often very funny and, in a viscerally entertaining way, understandable.

Shakespeare: Love's Labour's Lost Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Globe is, not to state the obvious, an outside theater and I had to wonder if perhaps a foggy evening was partly to blame for the rather soft looking AVC encoded 1080i image (in 1.78:1) that occurs with Love's Labour's Lost. This is the third OpusArte offering from the Globe, and it is by far the softest. Don't misconstrue these comments, there's nothing egregiously bad here, but comparing this release to both Romeo and Juliet and As You Like It reveals a rather gauzy texture to the proceedings here. Close-ups fare best, as might be expected, with reasonable sharpness and detail. There is a lot to look at here, including some very sumptuous costumes which present some nicely saturated yellows, browns and auburn-oranges, but when at the end of the evening, the camera tilts upward to a mist-strewn sky, my hunch is quite a few viewers will be saying, "A-ha! There's the culprit!"

Shakespeare: Love's Labour's Lost Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Two lossless tracks are included on this Blu-ray, a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix and an LPCM 2.0 stereo fold down. The 5.1 mix is quite impressive, with crystal clear and often invitingly directional dialogue. But what really makes this soundtrack shine is the boisterous, and surprisingly robust in the lower frequencies, period music score of Claire van Kampen. From the first moments with drum and fife to the heraldic entrance of Ferdinand and his court, to several musical interludes interspersed throughout the play's five sections, the DTS 5.1 mix is amazingly full and wonderfully palpable. Dynamic range is exceptional and fidelity is stellar from top to bottom. Optional English subtitles help to sort out Shakespeare's penchant for complex formulations.

Shakespeare: Love's Labour's Lost Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

I've been a little disappointed with the extras on these Shakespeare Blu's. Once again, on the disc we're presented with only a cast gallery and a sort of bookmarking device that takes you to "famous speeches" contained within the play. These Blu-rays would be aided by some supporting documentaries helping audiences to understand the import and context of each play.

Shakespeare: Love's Labour's Lost Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

There's no denying Love's Labour's Lost is a challenge, but in this inviting and often hilarious production, it doesn't seem like that daunting of a challenge. Filled with gorgeous costumes, wonderful music and some very good performances, this is a production you'll want to return to again and again. And that's a good thing, because chances are the first time through you won't have the foggiest what the actors are saying at least some of the time. Highly recommended.