Shakespeare's Globe has mounted a radical revision of Love's Labour's Lost, setting the play in Spain and punctuating it with flamenco dance and song. The production, directed by Indiana Lown-Collins, transforms the Navarre setting into a fully Spanish world, complete with paella and a choreographed bullfight.
A fiesta of movement and music
The choreography by Carmen Igarza is a highlight, with flamenco sequences that capture the romantic longing and underlying violence of the play. Pablo Egea delivers a spectacular performance as the bull in a hunting scene turned bullfight. The dance routines regularly stop the show, and the programme credits Igarza as choreographer and Vanessa Guevara as pre-hispanic movement consultant.
The cast is multinational, with Philip Arditti playing the cocky Berowne, sparring with Bea Segura's Rosaline. Andro Crespo portrays Don Adriano de Armado with authenticity and leads the final song beautifully. Casting director Becky Paris also earns praise.
Controversial additions and bawdy humor
Less happily, the production introduces Queen Elizabeth I into the climactic masque, with jokes about her sex life and vagina. The original play is already filled with bawdy that this production amplifies – in the Muscovite disguise scene, characters sport golden penile codpieces and nippled shoulder pads. The anachronistic mockery of Elizabeth I, however, would have been unthinkable in Shakespeare's time.
Nevertheless, the concept generally works as a joy. The play runs at Shakespeare's Globe until 13 September.
