Theater Reviews

Jul 29, 2000 - Tahoe Shakespeare: Unlabored, Lovely "Love's Labour's Lost"

By Jack Neal

Sand Harbor, on the Nevada side of blue and translucent Lake Tahoe, is the perfect setting for most anything, but tying that gorgeous setting with the world's best and most famous playwright for even one of his minor comedies is a mating of divine inspiration.

The Lake Tahoe Shakespeare Festival is in its 28th season, most of them at Sand Harbor. The somewhat over a month-long series opened Tuesday, July 25 and will run through Sunday, August 27, with "Much Ado About Nothing" alternating with "Love's Labour's Lost" on a nightly basis. There are no Monday performances.

Making this year's event even more special, the stage and its accompanying production needs have been upgraded to the tune of something slightly less than two million dollars. The money has been well spent. Avoided is the often misconstrued idea that the stage in theatrical circumstances is the only thing. One can still look through Peter Crompton's enchanting set, see the rustle of breeze gently moving the Tahoe Pines and not only view the majesty of Lake Tahoe but hear the waves moving softly but insistently across the lake's cream-colored sands.

How could anything not be a success in such a setting? A foolish question, perhaps. The lake has nothing to do with what people foist upon its shores. Fortunately the Lake Tahoe Shakespeare Festival has never fallen into the foist category, nor did it earlier this week, when its handsome and engaging "Love's Labour's Lost" made its summer's debut.

"Love's Labour's Lost" is a hit. Not a qualified one, an unquestioned one. The play itself has a history of stylized and open-ended productions, owing largely to its dearth of plot and heavy reliance on word play. The play's premise reads like an Elizabethan sitcom: The King of Navarre (a small country in a portion of Spain) and the men of his court - Berowne, Longaville and Dumaine - pledge to spend three years in the king's castle studying, and more importantly to the plot, avoiding the company of women.

But, as any good sitcom follower knows, things are not meant to rest on opening premises. Into this male domain marches a foxy French princess and her ladies in waiting - Rosaline, Maria and Katharine - who may be ladies in waiting but who don't want to wait too long for anything. They've come to party and they have no intentions of being bored by so studious a castle of men.

The ensuing action is lighthearted and fun. To its credit the production remains buoyant and fluffy, but avoids the kind of silliness that is often a cover for a muiltitude of sins, mainly a lack of directorial ideas. Sands Hall's direction is inventive, clear and briskly paced. The acting is solid to terrific. Clare Henkel's costumes are elegant spin-offs on Elizabethan fashion. Patrick Toebe's lighting is radiant (an enhancement, if that's possible, of the production's surroundings). And - glory of glories - Chris Christensen's sound design (and a cast that speaks with clarity) makes the Bard's words distinct and understandable.

Paul Zulzman is a distinguished king, who's not so self important that he can't let his hair down. Zulzman gives a nicely balanced characterization. Hanna Rahilly, in the juicy role of the milk maid Jaquenetta, wanders through the action with no-nonsense bounce and eyebrow-raising smarts. As the king's most right hand man, Berowne, Gillen Morrison plays his hand with just the right spin of irony.

Rebecca Dines is an assured Princess of France and delivers the production's most affecting performance. When word arrives that her father has died, that the fun is over, and that she must retreat to duty, the mood shift is touching without disengaging the overall gaiety of the play. It was a marvelously directed and acted moment.

The remainder of the cast is equally adroit. As Shakespeare's "fantastical Spaniard," Don Armado, Gary Alan Wright is properly primed for foolishness. Eric Wheeler is a wheeler-dealer Costard to be reckoned with, Philip Charles Sneed is a pompous Holofernes, Carolyn Howarth is a generous and witty Rosaline and Timothy Orr is a delightfully dull Dull. Every player in this play of words squeezed out every last nuance of text, even making the normally tiresome scene between Boyet (Hugh Dignon), Costard and the ladies of the court relatively coherent.

What a gifted cast of players. What a wonderfully cohesive ensemble.

The Lake Tahoe Shakespeare Festival's "Love's Labour's Lost" is a labor of love that's so unlabored it slides unerringly along and into the hearts of a public that can get neither enough of Lake Tahoe nor this shrewdly directed and sparklingly acted production.

The Lake Tahoe Shaskespeare Festival is noted for being one of America's 100 most distinguished performing arts festivals. For information regarding Lake Tahoe Shakespeare Festival performances call 1-800-74-SHOWS or visit the festival's website at www.laketahoeshakespeare.com.