HISTORICAL CONTEXT W6: YOUR PRODUCTION

 Research your own Shakespeare play: Much Ado About Nothing, Love's Labour's Lost or Titus Andronicus. What is the play about? When was it first performed? Find a contemporary production of the play you can get an idea of and research it in terms of concept, style, design, casting. Give some attention to your own character and their role in the play.

Love's Labour's Lost

What is the play about?

Loves Labours Lost follows 3 days of tumultuous and interesting relationships between vowed men and strong willed women. The King Ferdinand vows to abstain from women just before the French envoy arrives with The Princess of Aquataine, a woman who he's been crushing on for some time, accompanied by her 3 women in waiting (for Ferdinand's 3 trusty boys) and her trusty side-kick Boyet. The boys say the women will not come into their court, so the girls set up camp outside, annoyed and frustrated. The boys after seeing the girls are hook line and sinker in love with them, but none of them will admit it. In the background Dull a simple servant gets drawn into Costard's misadventures and mishaps as he flirts with Janquenetta a country wench who he's "well acquainted with. Armado a Spanish man who keeps with Ferdinand and his boys is in love with young Janquenetta. After masquerades and a bit of trickery with the women who change their favours

 to lure the guys into their jest, the men and women confess some sincere feelings for one another, The play concludes with the promise that the 8 will part for a year and return to solidify their love.

When was it first performed?

The  play was first performed at the inns Court for Queen Elizabeth I who commissioned for it to be made (in the mid 1950's).

Modern play interpretations

http://vidzi.tv/mtmlbk8gw7zg.html

The musical I watched was very similar in  a sense to the way we have done it. Both were transposed into the first half of the 1900's, theirs in 1930, and ours in the 1940's. The main thing that brought up a difference in time period was the fact the musical was based in America and ours was placed in the UK. With the character of the princess, I believe in this performance she was played much lighter than I played it on stage, very soft and gentle in her approach, she could handle the 'banter' between her and the King but it was in a more feminine way. The singing also created a different atmosphere of comedy to the way we created comedy. In this version of the play, the female speeches are mostly cut except for the Princess, but I do not feel as though she is the driving force of the female mayhem, in this production Costard seems to over shadow all the other characters in the play comedically. Also since this was abridged differently to ours we saw the Princess fall in love more, it was clear she was a little affected by Nevarr's presence and the boys seemed more in love as well.