Hello faithful readers. It has been much too long. Before we jump into our semi-regularly scheduled programming, allow me to offer an explanation for my long absence. I don't know if anyone has ever told you this, but the first year post-grad is hard. Really, really hard. Don't get me wrong, I am super grateful for my education and my life in New York City and so many of the wonderful people and opportunities here, but there's no sugar coating it. It was really hard. My promise to read a play a week and blog about it shouldn't have been hard to keep. I read and write very quickly and I truly love reading plays. However, for the majority of last year, I held down three jobs, worked seven days a week, and at least four days a week was getting up at 5:00 in the morning to make it all work. I was perpetually exhausted, not intellectually fulfilled, and my self-esteem was lower than it had been in years. I was applying for jobs in my field and working my connections pretty consistently, but nothing was changing. I have never quit anything in my life (well, I quit ballet when I was five, but I wasn't even a real person yet and I regret that decision to this day) and I knew that unless something drastic happened, I was going to continue on this pretty miserable path for the foreseeable future. Enter my dear friend Isabel. We were having coffee one freezing January morning when we got to talking about summer plans. I was applying primarily for work based in New York, but Isa's search was broader. She mentioned that she was auditioning for Santa Cruz Shakespeare, where she as an acting intern a few years back. She told me I would like it a lot and that they have a really amazing dramaturgy program. Because I trust Isabel and I had nothing to lose, I applied. Fast forward to a few months later and while I'm waiting for the kid I nanny to get home from school I receive a phone call with a Santa Cruz area code. The artistic director of SCS called me personally to offer me an internship on their production of Love's Labour's Lost. I was frankly shocked, not only that I was offered the internship, but that it was the artistic director himself who made the call. I said I needed some time to think about it, and after communicating over the next few weeks with him, the managing director, and other SCS alumni and friends in the industry, I decided it was an opportunity I simply could not pass up. I knew the first day I arrived in Santa Cruz that I made the right decision. At the company luncheon I was moved to tears by the way the SCS staff and the directors spoke about their vision. Looking around the room I was in a space that obviously celebrated diversity, education, and the art of theatre. After months in New York, surrounded by people that seem to be in the business for all the wrong reasons and having spent all that time banging down their doors to get in, it felt incredibly moving and validating to be with like-minded individuals. These were people who love theatre and Shakespeare and care about advancing the art form, not for personal gain, but because art still means something in this world. Showing mixed race couples on stage, in classic Shakespearean roles, no less, means something. Having women play roles written for men means something. Having people of color play royalty and aristocracy means something. Once the rehearsal process began, I was very creatively fulfilled and had loads of fun. The director and the whole team made me feel so included. After months in New York being treated very much like an intern without a creative bone in my body it felt so good to be in a setting where I was more than a talking head who could use a computer. I was valued as a person with dramaturgical knowledge and skill. I laughed every single day in that rehearsal room, and very often laughed until I cried. It could not have been a better show to work on this summer and make me fall in love with theatre all over again. Then there's the play itself. Oh, Love's Labour's Lost, what an odd and intriguing piece of work you are. In all honesty before I was offered this job not only had I not read the play, but I had literally no idea what it was about. I had heard Biron's call-to-arms monologue from Act IV, Scene III, "Have at you, then, affection's men at arms," etc etc, famous for being incredibly long and in blank verse, some say the comedic counterpart to Henry V's St. Crispin's Day speech. St. Valentine's day speech, if you will! So one day last spring I plopped down on the Great Lawn in Central Park right before a massive rain storm and got reading. Unfortunately, I left my annotated script at my parent's house in California and don't have my first impression notes at hand but it was definitely a fun first read! I was a little bit nervous that I would forget how to read Shakespeare, but it's like riding a bike. Essentially, what you need to know about Love's Labour's is this: Ferdinand, King of Navarre, and his three friends make a vow to study for three years and in that time swear off worldly pleasure, most importantly, women. However, when the Princess of France and her three lady friends arrive on diplomatic business, hilarity and chaos ensues in typical Shakespeare fashion. Throw in some common folk for extra comedic effect and you've got yourself a good time! It was so fun to read the play because it clearly sets the stage for Shakespeare's later (more produced, more successful) comedies. There's a clever masquerade mix up scene, as we will see later in Much Ado About Nothing, a band of misfits who put on a play like in Midsummer, love letter confusion like in Twelfth Night, and so much more. It's almost like Shakespeare was trying out all these plot devices and stretching his use of language to the fullest so he could refine all of it in his later works. One of my favorite things about this play in particular though is that all of the female characters have so much agency. Unlike Much Ado, Midsummer, and Twelfth Night, the women in the play all act almost entirely independently, or at least without the guidance of men. The Princess has been sent on a diplomatic mission by her father, the dying King of France, with the prideful but lovable Boyet as a chaperone. Although written as a male character, our production had Boyet played by and as a woman, so we never see the Princess or her three companions take advice or instruction from a man. The women hold the upper hand through out the entire show really, as the men are so quick to abandon their vows and fall for each and every one of them. After an act filled with hijinks, mixed up love letters, disguises, and foolishness, the merriment comes to and end when a messenger arrives to let the Princess know her father has died. She is now the Queen of France and decides she needs to head home to mourn immediately. SO of course the King of Navarre and his friends decide now would be a great time to earnestly confess their love for the women who have just found out their king has died. The Princess and her friends are quick to make it clear that they are not won over that easily: PRINCESS We have received your letters full of love; Your favours, the ambassadors of love; And, in our maiden council, rated them At courtship, pleasant jest and courtesy, [. . .] DUMAIN Our letters, madam, show'd much more than jest. LONGAVILLE So did our looks. ROSALINE We did not quote them so. FERDINAND Now, at the latest minute of the hour, Grant us your loves. PRINCESS A time, methinks, too short To make a world-without-end bargain in. The scene goes on and each couple, following the lead of the Queen, agrees to call upon their respective suitor in a year's time, when the traditional mourning period comes to an end. If at that time their love still stands, they will marry. EVERY SINGLE WOMAN REJECTS A MARRIAGE PROPOSAL BY THEIR LOVE INTEREST. EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. The play takes place over the course of a couple of days! They've just found out about a personal and national tragedy! They're all beautiful, aristocratic, educated women! They're not gonna marry someone just because they wrote them love letters and bought them jewelry! Ugh. I love this play. So good! I miss watching it every night. Anyway, as the men and women are about to part ways, we get this GEM of dialogue from our favorite meta-theatrical playwright: BIRON Our wooing doth not end like an old play; Jack hath not Jill: these ladies' courtesy Might well have made our sport a comedy. KING Come, sir, it wants a twelvemonth and a day, And then 'twill end. BIRON That's too long for a play.
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Stephanie KaneI like reading plays, drinking lots of coffee, and holding other people's Tony Awards. Archives
August 2018
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