Summary 
Updated to the 1780s, Ferdinand and his Navarre men are played as scholarly musketeers overmatched in romance by chic and sophisticated French ladies in a rainbow of colors. Expertly cast top to bottom with an effete but very funny Armado resembling what the scholars' future may be, plus a fresh and surprising Costard, brimming with physicality and lusty good cheer. Somber conclusion lightened by Rosaline's quick return to steal a kiss.
Design
Directed by Antoni Cimolino. Designed by Santo Loquasto. Lights by Steven Hawkins. Sound by Peter McBoyle. Compositions by Craig Bohmler. Choreographed by Donna Feore.
Cast
Shane Carty (Ferdinand), Graham Abbey (Berowne), Dana Green (Princess), Michelle Giroux (Rosaline), Jonathan Goad (Costard), Adrienne Gould (Jaquenetta), Brian Bedford (Armado), Jacob James (Moth), Barry MacGregor (Nathaniel), Brian Tree (Holofernes), Tim MacDonald (Dull), Deborah Hay (Katharine), Sarah McVie (Maria), James Blendick (Boyet), Stephen Gartner (Longaville), Caleb Marshall (Dumain).
Analysis
Director Antoni Cimolino modernizes Stratford Festival's Love's Labour's Lost to the post-revolutionary 1780s. The young provincial men of Navarre, dressed as swashbuckling musketeers with a dash of long-haired rock-and-roll, seek knowledge and sophistication in an attempt to catch up with a developing Europe. Their academic world, lit in pale green, shows a touch of isolation and melancholy with willow trees drooping upstage and sad string music playing from offstage. A two-wheeled silver cart dominates the set, laden with scientific apparatus, including a telescope on a rooftop platform. Cimolino provides a wordless Prologue to illustrate the folly of denying natural emotions: Costard and Jaquenetta - lusty, barefoot, and raggedly dressed - rush onstage and grapple and roll over each other in an unashamed make-out session, but conceal themselves from the bespectacled King Ferdinand, who climbs atop the cart to peer through the telescope.
Graham Abbey's Berowne exudes an atypical confidence, seated and gnawing an apple throughout the callow 1.1 declarations of fasting, celibacy and sleep deprivation, finally tossing the fruit and interrupting his friends. The young men wear muted brown and tan clothing, in contrast to the Parisienne ladies, who arrive like rainbows in 2.1 with striking splashes of color. The Princess and her attendants - chic, sophisticated and verbally playful - expose the awkward immaturity of "Navarre and his book men." Ferdinand takes two awestruck steps backward at the sight of the lovely Princess, and Berowne separates himself from the King's huddle to bluntly pursue Rosaline. Cimolino handles the lovers' interaction in an entertaining fashion but also reveals their banter as grade-school puppy-love antics.
The aged Spaniard Don Armado is played as sympathetic rather than as a clown, despite his thigh-high black boots, handlebar mustache, and overload of medals. Pale and melancholy, he exudes the same lovesick ache ("adieu, valor!") as Ferdinand and the Princess and their followers, although his passion for Jaquenetta, a teenaged dairy-maid lugging a milk pail, is obviously doomed to be unrequited. As the boyish Moth sings in 3.1, Armado composes his absurd love letter and releases his love from cupped hands as if it is a dove.
The portrayals of minor characters provide interesting insights. Costard's straightforward honesty - he frequently naps onstage - contrasts with the poetic ravings of Ferdinand and his men, and Jaquenetta's beauty reveals the artifice in the attire and speech of the Princess and her retinue. Similarly, the pedantic Nathaniel and Holofernes are ably played as just a different kind of buffoon than the taciturn Dull, who is expressionless in his honest ignorance. Dull receives a laugh when it is remarked in 5.1 that he has spoken no word and he responds "nor understood none neither, sir." The ever-smiling Costard is the play's down-to-earth hero: goosed by Moth, waved at by the powder-wigged Boyet as if he smells, and carrying a laughing Jaquenetta offstage over his shoulder.
The 4.1 hunting scene - with the leather-gloved ladies wearing forearm straps and carrying bows with quivers of arrows over their backs - is played with schoolgirl giggles to counterpoint the boyish 4.3 bravado of the King and his men. The radiant Rosaline bumps the Princess in the behind with her bow, then kisses Boyet and uses her bow to give him a cuckold's horns. Moments later, in a charming star turn, Abbey's outraged Berowne descends from a rope atop the cart like a modern day fireman to accuse his friends, his finger wagging to shame them and his lip quivering at the "betrayal." When Jaquenetta arrives, Berowne seizes his letter, then shreds it, and finally stuffs it into his mouth. Exposed, he spits the remnants into his friends' palms, then joins a sports huddle, slaps hands and rushes off as a rather late (4.3) interval arrives.
The short second act features the Navarre men reduced to an idiotic imitation of black-masked Muscovite soldiers, one of them injured ("hey!") in an attempt at the splits, and their ridicule - despite Berowne's remark at being "shame-proof" - of the Nine Worthies presentation. During the 5.2 "wisitation," Abbey's flustered Berowne loses his Russian accent completely, only regaining his composure after a flurry of hems and haws from his comrades. The diminutive Moth drums for the Nine Worthies, crashing cymbals strapped between his knees, and when Alexander the Great breaks wind, he shouts "run away!" Moments later, portraying young Hercules battling the serpent, Moth comically engulfs his own head with a snake sock-puppet as Holofernes attempts to restrain him. The players endure taunts from the Navarre nobility, who less than nobly play keep-away with Armado's scarf, but the horseplay is halted by Marcade's somber arrival.
The wave of slapstick comedy comes to a jarring stop. The ladies exit downstage to the playing of the winter song - "Jack hath not Jill" - and promises are made to wait one year, although Armado shows his earnestness with a three-year pledge. Cimolino subverts the melancholy conclusion by having Rosaline rush back onstage for a final passionate kiss with Abbey's Berowne. At times poignant and always fun, Cimolino's Love's Labour's Lost benefits from an expert cast's clear readings, and is well-conceived and handsomely executed entertainment.
Note: A version of this article was edited and published in Shakespeare Bulletin, Vol.22, No.1, Spring 2004.