Love’s Labor’s Lost at Folger Theatre, 2019. Photo by Brittany Diliberto, Bee Two Sweet Photography.
This spring, Folger Theatre presented a Love’s Labor’s Lost transplanted to 1930s Washington, DC, complete with record players and secret caches of whiskey or bourbon you’d expect to find in a Thin Man movie. It worked, because the play’s comedic energy aligns perfectly with another type of romantic comedy popular in 1930s American cinema: screwball comedy.
In Love’s Labor’s Lost, the women’s arrival upends the men’s plans, and any oaths they made to devote themselves to study and to scorn the presence of women go out the window. Soon the men find themselves (in this production) stumbling around lovesick in the middle of the night, searching for the right turn of phrase to woo the ladies, all while trying to hide their infidelity to their oath from one another. It’s straight out of a golden-age screwball film.
A battle of the sexes waged with words
One of the hallmarks of screwball comedy is witty, fast-paced dialogue, a battle of the sexes waged with words; think of Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell trading barbs a mile a minute in His Girl Friday. Shakespeare too delights in his characters’ wordplay, especially that of the King, his men, the Princess, and her ladies. In Shakespeare’s day, such ready wit was indispensable for a refined courtier, though if tennis was the metaphor for verbal sparring, Shakespeare’s is a friendlier game of court compared to Grant and Russell’s. But both achieve the same effect of satirizing love, aiming at its traditional story (in screwball comedy) and its language (in Shakespeare).
The men and ladies in Shakespeare’s play are both skilled at the game of wits, but the women often best the men. Similarly in screwball comedy, the woman is usually the dominant partner. Mild-mannered paleontologist Cary Grant doesn’t stand a chance against Katherine Hepburn’s slightly batty heiress in Bringing Up Baby. Bookish professor Gary Cooper is no match for nightclub singer Sugarpuss O’Shea, played by Barbara Stanwyck, in Ball of Fire.
Love’s Labor’s Lost at Folger Theatre, 2019. Photo by Brittany Diliberto, Bee Two Sweet Photography.
Disguises and escapism
The ladies reassert their dominance after receiving letters and gifts to wear from their suitors. They opt to have some fun, trading the gifts among each other and donning masks before the men arrive, raising another feature of screwball comedy: disguises, masquerades, and mistaken identities. Think of Irene Dunne pretending to be Cary Grant’s sister (rather than his ex-wife) when she meets his new fiancée in The Awful Truth. The entire plot of The Lady Eve hinges on Barbara Stanwyck posing as the eponymous society woman rather than the con artist she really is. Here, in Love’s Labor’s Lost, the ladies assume each other’s identities, prompting the men to assert the earnestness of their pursuit. Until now, the women have been, to varying degrees, less swept up than the men, not realizing how serious the men actually are.
Even the setting parallels screwball comedies, which reveled in escapism—no surprise given their popularity during the Great Depression. Here, the Court of Navarre suggests a kind of escapism in that it was supposed to be a place of study—an intellectual refuge. It is a particular source of escapism for the Princess, whose father is sick. Though she is ostensibly there on business, we see very little actually conducted.
A bittersweet ending
True, the parallels aren’t perfect, the key deviation being the play’s abruptly sad ending. At the height of their revels, once the masquerades are set aside and the couples paired off, a herald arrives with grave news: the old king is dead. The Princess, now Queen, must return home with her ladies and go into mourning for a year. Rather than a happy, boy-gets-girl ending, Shakespeare gives us an ending where boy and girl must separate. As Berowne says, “Our wooing doth not end like an old play; Jack hath not Jill” (5.2.947-8). Though the men pledge to wait, a year is a long time. We have to wonder if the foundation of these relationships, based on initial attraction and verbal sparring, is enough to withstand the test. A bittersweet ending, where boy never gets girl, is possible.
Love’s Labor’s Lost at Folger Theatre, 2019. Photo by Brittany Diliberto, Bee Two Sweet Photography.
No matter how their story ultimately ends, bittersweet is the right word for this play. The Princess and her ladies may have enjoyed their respite and even fallen in love in Navarre. But duty and responsibility can’t be ignored indefinitely and may even prove obstacles to happy endings, something the Princess understands perhaps best of all. This is just as true for the audience. As Berowne notes, a year is “too long for a play” (5.2.952). We can’t stay to see how it ends. We have responsibilities, too. Shakespeare underlines his point by addressing the last line to us: “You [the audience] that way: we [the players] this way” (5.2.1003). Instead of pure screwball escapism, Shakespeare injects his play with the acknowledgment that the revels can’t go on forever. Eventually, the games—and the plays and movies—have to end.
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Comments
Caitlin,
I definitely agree with your comparison of Love’s Labor’s Lost to the screwball comedies of the 1930’s, although your examples are a bit more highbrow than mine.
When I introduce my high school students to Love’s Labor’s Lost I start with the basic story of the king and his crew making the pledge to study, fast, and forswear the company of women for a year, under severe penalty for any violation. Enter the girls, and the boys start writing poems. Add a couple of misdirected love letters and the fun begins.
I stop there and tell them that this plot reminds me of something from my past. When I was young, television was in its infancy and short on programming Often, short subjects that had originally been shown in theaters got repackaged for the tube.
Then I show them the Our Gang/Little Rascals short Mail and Female (1937). Alfalfa finds himself elected president (in absentia) of The He-man Woman Haters Club right after asking Buckwheat to deliver his love letter to Darla. He makes a brilliant attempt at a cover-up, (cross-dressing, a Shakespeare favorite) as the tale reaches its hilarious conclusion.
I have thus removed the intimidation factor. Love’s Labor’s Lost isn’t ancient and impenetrable. It’s (relatively) current and relatable comedy. But wait! There’s more!
I then bring out the big guns. I show them Women Haters, the 1934 film that introduced The Three Stooges to the big screen. Again, the boys swear off the girls under penalty, and then find themselves tempted at every turn. As an added bonus, this film is a musical with all dialogue delivered in rhyme!
These two short films not only capture the spirit of Love’s Labor’s Lost, but reuse the plot so closely that I am amazed no one has published a scholarly comparison.
Sincerely,
Richard K. Heilmann, Pittsburgh
Richard K. Heilmann — August 22, 2019