Love's Labour's Lost, March 31, 2007, The Shakespeare Tavern

Cool. Way cool. Atlanta has a theater company (The Atlanta Shakespeare Company) dedicated to presenting the works of Shakespeare in the "Original Practice," or shows produced the way the Bard would have done it himself. Not only that, they have their own building that resembles The Globe. Uber cool.

Mr. Silvershoes and I went early to sample the British pub fair served in the theater before the show. True to billing, it was a bit bland and overcooked. Happily, the same could not be said of the production.

Love's Labour's Lost is one of Shakespeare's earlier plays, which I mention for no reason whatsoever. It centers on four men who have just vowed a 3-year stint of reclusive celibacy in order to further their studies. Naturally, shortly thereafter a beautiful princess (did I mention one of the men is a king?) and her three attendants appear at court on a business call. Romance ensues. Confusion reigns. Someone dies. In other words, a typical Shakespeare play.

While the actors were all good, some stood out - none more than Jeff McKerley, who played the nominal lead, Lord Berwone (and has his own web page). He looks a bit like Steve Martin and is equally hilarious. Able to switch from sarcasm to tender longing at the flip of a sixpence, the audience was eager to follow. Jeff Watkins, the artistic director, played a daffy but engaging Don Adriano de Armado. His Spanish accent, while certainly adding to the comedy, was sometimes a bit hard to understand. Matthew Felten, as Armado's page Moth, and Troy Willis, as the princess's attendant Boyet, were sly comedic observers.

This play includes what may be the most ridiculous love letter ever written, that written by Armado to the village wench Jaquenetta. Because to excerpt it is not enough, here it is in its entirety:

By heaven, that thou art fair, is most infallible; true, that thou art beauteous; truth itself, that thou art lovely. More fairer than fair, beautiful than beauteous, truer than truth itself, have commiseration on thy heroical vassal! The magnanimous and most illustrate king Cophetua set eye upon the pernicious and indubitate beggar Zenelophon; and he it was that might rightly say, Veni, vidi, vici; which to annothanize in the vulgar,--O base and obscure vulgar!--videlicet, He came, saw, and overcame: he came, one; saw two; overcame, three. Who came? the king: why did he come? to see: why did he see? to overcome: to whom came he? to the beggar: what saw he? the beggar: who overcame he? the beggar. The conclusion is victory: on whose side? the king's. The captive is enriched: on whose side? the beggar's. The catastrophe is a nuptial: on whose side? the king's: no, on both in one, or one in both. I am the king; for so stands the comparison: thou the beggar; for so witnesseth thy lowliness. Shall I command thy love? I may: shall I enforce thy love? I could: shall I entreat thy love? I will. What shalt thou exchange for rags? robes; for tittles? titles; for thyself? me. Thus, expecting thy reply, I profane my lips on thy foot, my eyes on thy picture. and my heart on thy every part. Thine, in the dearest design of industry, DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO

It's Shakespeare, so I could go on, but I shan't.