Light Fun with UWM’s 'Love’s Labour’s Lost'

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Photo Credit: Lisa Fadden

UW-Milwaukee’s production of Love’s Labour’s Lost begins gently, a panoply of birdsong and dappled light. The stage is sparsely furnished, letting the characters’ speeches inform the audience of the setting: a field outside the court gates of Navarre, where the King (Jeremy Holmes Berson) and three of his companions have taken a vow of uninterrupted study. Instrumental to this oath is the promise to avoid the company of women for the duration of three years. An inconvenient stipulation, as the Princess of France (Kira Renkas) has just arrived on Navarre’s doorstep, with a bevy of charming attendants. The gentlemen quickly find their staunch morals cannot stand the test of the ladies’ eyes, and are soon up to their own in secrets. In a particularly humorous scene, all four of the men emerge onto the stage, each composing their own hyperbolic love note, unaware they are being observed by their compatriots.

The women of this play carry tongues sharper than any of the actual weapons seen onstage, and hardly seem limited by a sense of antiquated propriety. A sense of perpetual merriment abounds as wit flies back and forth across the stage in increasingly comic face-offs between the sexes, complete with mistaken identities, disguises and a play within the play.

The cast is filled with eager comedians, with Michael Jeske as the love lorn Berowne, and Kodi Schopper as a lanky, wiggly Don Adriano de Armado emerging as particular audience favorites. The costumes, designed by Jason Orlenko, deserve a special mention, adding a layer of delight to the silly meringue of the plot. The women swish about the stage in regal Regency garb, and the men in shining vests and brightly-colored tailcoats.

It’s a long journey to the resolution, at which point the audience is rewarded with a curtain call song that nicely ties up the loose ends Shakespeare left for the audience to ponder.