Author Julie Hammonds is on a quest to complete Shakespeare’s canon in calendar year 2025… and this play brought her one step closer. In these pocket play reviews, she records brief impressions of each show she sees.
- The Play: Love’s Labour’s Lost
- The Company: Lanes Coven Theater Co. (Rockport/Gloucester/Cape Ann, MA)
- The Stage: a raised platform outdoors beneath a tent roof at Windhover Center for the Performing Arts, a collection of cedar-shake buildings on more than four acres of wooded grounds. A fabric backdrop stirred in the breeze. Artificial lighting and a sturdy sound system ensured that everyone could see and hear the story.
- Run Dates: July 12–27, 2025
- Memorable for: The extended dance mashup scene, lip-synched to pop tunes, that sent the play’s energy skyrocketing while still serving the story
- The Museum Club “Tush Push” Award goes to choreographer Sarah Slifer Swift
Pocket Play Review:
The up-and-coming Lanes Coven Theater Company has reimagined one of Shakespeare’s lesser-known plays, elevating it to high comedic art with a touch of the bittersweet.
Lanes Coven co-founders Justin Genna and Lily Narbonne read Love’s Labour’s Lost during the COVID pandemic and realized its setting felt familiar.
Anyone who spent the pandemic in a bubble will understand life at the court of the King of Navarre. The king and his nobles have locked themselves away for three years of study. Vowing to eat little and sleep less, they take bold oaths to avoid the company of women.
Oops! The king is reminded that the Princess of France and her courtiers will soon arrive on important business. What to do?
The king invites his royal visitors to stay in a field outside his castle (no doubt for optimal social distancing). Despite this precaution, the king’s men and the king himself fall in love with the lovely visitors from France.
It’s extra special to watch Love’s Labour’s Lost outdoors. Seated together, watching a show, we share the freedom the royals and courtiers feel as they forget the broader world and its dramas for a blessed while.
But we’re also reminded that not everyone can play at love in a bubble. As the powerful enjoy witty wordplay and idle flirtation, they watch the amusing antics of the common folk: a clown, a Spaniard, his servant, a wench, and a soldier.
In this tight ensemble of talented storytellers, each actor skillfully conveyed meaning in movement as well as text. Every member of the cast shone in their own way, but if I had to call out just one actor for special mention, I would choose Debra Wise. In the tradition of Shakespeare’s great clown characters, her Costard was perfectly played both in posture and manner and through her trained voice.
For Costard and the other common people, courtly life isn’t an idyll. There’s work to be done. Actions like falling in love have real consequences, and there are deadlines and injuries and heartbreak. Meanwhile, the royals pass love letters and philosophize about how to break vows of celibacy without being forsworn.
After an extended all-cast dance scene (one of this production’s many highlights), the play turns in a somber direction. Receiving tragic news from France, the princess tells the king she must leave right away. When the king and his men protest, the women realize that what they took for merry flirtation was intended as earnest devotion. As lovers part, knowing they won’t meet again for a year and a day, the real costs of cutting ourselves off from love and pleasure become apparent.
Director Justin Genna asked in his director’s note, “Can we live in a world where we have quarantined ourselves from humanity and love?” Lanes Coven has given us a story of shared humanity that calls us to celebrate the time we have, together.
Named for a nearby cove on the coast of Massachusetts where they perform, Lanes Coven is now in its fifth season. Watching the performances this past weekend, I was tremendously impressed. They have all the ingredients for enduring success. They serve the community with a new education program and offer tickets in a range of prices. They hire professional actors, some just starting out, others well-recognized for their decades in the craft. They use their outdoor setting to full effect and treat their guests well. Audiences rewarded this outstanding team with standing ovations at every performance I saw.
Wherever you are, there is probably a Shakespeare festival going on nearby this month. July and August are the peak months for seeing shows outdoors. Go, find a play and take some time to celebrate life in your community.
For those keeping score, Love’s Labour’s Lost was one of the four plays I need to see in order to “complete the canon.” After a magical weekend in Massachusetts, I now have three to go.
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