A delightful “Love’s Labour’s Lost,” set in the Romantic era, among the great trees and shrubbery of Regent’s Park, proved that this early work, dismissed by many scholars, has more to it than meets the eye on a first (or subsequent) reading.  Rachel. Kavanaugh rightly sees that the studied poetry is not attributable to a beginning playwright, but to his depiction of young people moving from affectation to real affection by the end.  Even this early, Shakespeare’s women are in charge, as they are in later comedies.  The King of Navarre and his aristocratic cohorts are idle young men indulging in the pose of scholars. When smitten at the first sight of the Princess and her female attendants,  they abandon the pose and express themselves in overblown, exaggerated declarations of love.  But they soon learn a lesson when the women, in masks, reveal how foolish the men look, having sworn eternal devotion – to the wrong woman.  

            Setting the play in the Romantic era of Byron, Keats, and Shelley (remember  his “I die, I faint, I fail” ?) enhances the extreme behavior of the men, while the women look like Elizabeth Bennett, and display of her good sense.  Adrian Schiller is Berowne, who sees through the posturing of his peers, but goes along anyway when they take their monastic vows and abjure the company of women (briefly).  His counterpart  is  Rebecca Johnson as Rosaline, who not only teaches him how absurd his exaggerated declarations are, but who, with the other women, makes him wait a year and a day before she and the others will commit.  In the comic sub-plot, Christopher Godwin is the absurd Don Armado and John Conroy the egocentric schoolmaster Holofernes

            Ms. Kavanaugh rightly recognizes the importance of the black-clad messenger who arrives at the end to announce to the Princess that her father has died.  Mortality had been mentioned at the play’s opening, as Navarre declared they could defeat Time by withdrawal from the world.  Now they realize the world has caught up with them, that reality is here and now, as the two wonderful lyrics at the end (beautifully delivered) make clear.

            The Open-Air Theatre also is presenting Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” directed by Alan Strachan, with the lovers and the Athenian court in Victorian dress.  Performance schedule: www.open-air-theatre.org.uk.

            Mary Zimmerman has directed “Measure for Measure” as the comedy it is, not at all worried that so many critics call it “dark” and “difficult.”  Billy Crudup, whose screen credits include “Almost Famous” is a youthful Angelo, which makes a difference.  Of this young moralist it is said that he “scarce confesses that his blood flows”  his blood,  quips Lucio, being “very snow-broth.” Because Angelo “doth rebate and blunt his natural edge/ With profits of the mind, study, and fast,” the Duke of Vienna decides to  put him in charge. Leaving town, the Duke will test his righteous-seeming deputy to discover “if power change purpose, what our seemers be.”  

            Because he is young, Mr. Crudup makes credible both his “seeming” virtuous because he has never been tempted, and his sudden desire for Isabella (Sanaa Lathan), a novitiate. Her mission to Angelo is to beg for the life of her brother (Daniel Pino) who has committed the sin of fornication, which Angelo is punishing with death, applying an old, dormant law.

            As the production stresses the comedy, it presents only sketchily the corruption in Vienna that the Duke complains he has seen “boil and bubble,” hence his turning over the rule to Angelo to enforce the laws. The vices, like snorting cocaine, are lightly treated, and the odd assortment of debauched types are more comic than sinister.  Froth (Daniel Pearce), that “butterfly of the brothel” is a nervous frequenter of Mistress Overdone’s (Julia Gibson) establishment, while Pompey the “bawd” (Christopher Evan Welch) is a good-natured bloke, always optimistic, as when he advises the madam that when Angelo orders the brothels to be pulled down, “though you change your place, you need not change your trade.” And Lucio (John Pankow), the destroyer of reputations, is more a swaggerer than  an evil gossip. Ms. Zimmerman easily resolves the question of the Duke’s last-minute proposal to Isabella; she has him indicate immediately that he has a more than fatherly interest in her.

            The set by Daniel Ostling charmingly blends with the surrounding nature, with its leafy trees in cages, a symbol contrasting nature restrained with nature free.  Shakespeare, as always, finds the happy medium between them.

            “The Winter’s Tale” is a more difficult play to stage than those just mentioned, because it demands so much from its three leading players, Leontes (Alex Jennings), Hermione his wife (Claire Skinner) and Paulina (Deborah Findlay), the outspoken waiting woman who resolves the complicated plot. 

            Alex Jennings is giving what is probably the performance of his life as King Leontes of Sicilia, who suddenly without any prior indication, accuses his pregnant wife of infidelity with his best friend, Polixenes, the King of Bohemia, who hastily cuts short his visit to them.  Leontes’ sudden switch from affable friend to enraged enemy is difficult to act convincingly, because there is no motivation in the text; all is dependent on the actor’s skill, and Jennings convinces us. Modern dress also helps; as Leontes’ jealous rage reaches its climax, the situation is the stuff of tabloids. When the baby is born, the king declares it a bastard to be done away with, and arrests Hermione for treason.

            Hermione is well portrayed by Claire Skinner as one of Shakespeare’s strong heroines.  She defends herself at her trial with an intelligent speech blending logic and emotion, but Leontes refuses to believe her or the Oracle which declares her innocent.  When the king pronounces the death sentence, the queen conveniently faints.  Paulina now takes over the plot.  She reports Hermione’s death, and continues to chastise Leontes, who, filled with remorse repents his behavior and voices his guilt and shame as he mourns his loss of both wife and son.  

            After sixteen years the abandoned baby daughter Perdita, who has been found and cared for by a shepherd, now (by Shakespearean coincidence) falls in love with the son of Polixenes..  Fleeing from his disapproving father, the couple make their way to Sicilia, where the outspoken Paulina decides Leontes has suffered enough.  The final scene in which the statue of Hermione comes to life, is especially moving as staged by Nicholas Hytner.  Hytner has done an excellent job in guiding the actors’ art in their portrayals, in making certain that the text rules his conception (not the other way around), and in weaving into a rich fabric the many threads – court and country, highborn and low, rage and repentance, sin and redemption – of this great work. 

            Jennings’ performance is helped by modern dress to make entirely credible what is sometimes difficult to believe: Leontes’ sudden fit of jealousy.  As his wife and best friend join a gathering at the piano, cocktails in hand, Leontes’ near-mad behavior becomes understandable.  Other touches by director Hytner that lend clarity include assigning Time’s speech as Chorus to Leontes’ child Mamillius at the beginning of the play, called upon to recite for the admiring party guests.  To bridge sixteen years as act four opens, the child’s ghost delivers Time’s chorus, with new characters Perdita and Florizel entering and explaining themselves as the exposition continues.

            Leontes’ courtiers become an entourage of yes-men and –women, but even they resist the false accusations and sentence of death for Hermione.  Deborah Findlay is impressive as the outspoken Paulina, who defends Hermione, presents the baby to Leontes, and maneuvers the magical final act statue that comes to life.  Here in modern dress Hermione assumes a natural pose, seated on a plinth, wearing a simple, draped white dress.

            The comic sheep-shearing festival is turned into a Woodstock-style hippie gathering, with blatant music, souvenir t-shirts, and dancing.  The roguish Autolycus, when not picking pockets, is selling his ballads on compact disks.  As he rattles off their titles, we recognize tag lines from other Shakespearean plays.

            Led by Jennings, the entire cast handle the poetry well as they create action that is consistently relevant and exciting, mounting to the magical climax at the end.

 Henry VI Parts 1, 2, and 3; Richard III

            The Royal Shakespeare Company productions of the eight history plays from “Richard II” through “Richard III” has concluded, after being cheered by audiences in  Stratford-upon-Avon, London, and  Michigan.  Staged for the Millennium, the plays were presented in historical chronological order.  After the first four appeared at Stratford-upon-Avon, the final four, the “Henry VI” trilogy and “Richard III,” were produced in partnership with the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.  Its visit to the university included not only the productions, but educational sessions, master classes, and outreach work throughout the State.  Finally, all eight plays were seen in both Stratford and London.

            Witnessing the final four plays in two days at the Young Vic Theatre in London was an unforgettable experience, for not only were these early works made vivid by expert acting and direction, but history itself was clarified as one after another of Shakespeare’s dramatic scenes were brought to life.  Credit the Bard himself with selecting the best from the historical accounts he found in Raphael Holinshead’s Chronicles, versions not always strictly accurate, and at times biased, especially More’s account of Richard III, which he wrote under the patronage of the Tudors and painted Richard as the villain who inspired Shakespeare’s version.  Holinshead’s dull pages become dramatic scenes:  Joan of Arc inspiring the French and crowning a cowardly Dauphin; Queen Margaret and Suffolk having a passionate extra-marital affair, suggested by a phrase in the history book;  Richard III, whose deeds are in the Chronicles but whose character as a villain combining wit and Machiavellian scheming Shakespeare found in Marlowe, and improved upon.

            Directed by Michael Boyd and designed by Tom Piper, the four productions were notable for their imagination, variety, and fast pace; the fighting was exciting, with ladders, scaling ropes, and hand-to-hand clashes, while the rhetoric of the speeches never overtook their clarity.  The many characters were clearly defined in their first appearances, and the fact that the same actors continued in the same roles (unless stabbed, beheaded, drowned, or otherwise done away with) throughout the plays.  You knew the Bishop of Winchester (Christopher Ettridge) was a bad lot who would make trouble later because in the series’ opening scene of Henry V’s funeral, he spits into the grave after the mourners leave.  Trapdoors hark back to the Elizabethan stage, and these were imaginatively used, representing Henry’s grave here, but also the exit for those killed in battle or otherwise.  Conveniently, the dead returned through the trapdoor as ghosts   Properties descended from above, like scaling ropes in the battle scenes or the white and red roses as York and Lancaster choose up sides in the Temple Garden. 

            Joan of Arc, being the enemy of England, is treated by Shakespeare as a spirit-attended witch, and here three spirits accompany her in additional scenes (though even Shakespeare could not resist the prediction that she would one day be revered as a saint). The small size of the Young Vic with its open stage meant that the actors were in close proximity to the audience, and this enhanced the clarity of their speeches.  The Royal Shakespeare Company earns kudos for not making trendy cuts in the text, as with two currently abbreviated “Hamlet”s, Peter Brook’s version, and the Royal National’s.

            “Richard III” was Shakespeare’s most popular play, to judge by the number of quarto (single-volume) editions printed in the author’s lifetime.  Beginning with his soliloquy at the end of Part III, Richard dominates the play that bears his name, and if Aidan McArdle seemed somewhat less dangerous than was Simon Russell Beale in an earlier RSC production, he was wittier, taking genuine delight in his evildoing.   A good director’s touch was to bring in at Richard’s coronation, mingling with the attendant crowd, the ghosts of those he had murdered and presaging their return before the battle.

            Both the acting and the direction were excellent, and the venture is to be commended.  It is to be hoped that somewhere there exists a film of it, a record of this achievement that will long be remembered as the definitive version of Shakespeare’s history cycle.