Stratford Festival 2008 – Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost

Paula Citron
____________________________
Love’s Labour’s Lost
Stratford Festival
Written by William Shakespeare
Directed by Michael Langham
Starring the Young Company
Tom Patterson Theatre until Oct. 4
__________________________

The Stratford Festival is also about training, and a great many of Canada’s top actors have passed through the Birmingham Conservatory for Classical Theatre since 1998. This season these young artists are being given their own production of Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost under former Stratford artistic director Michael Langham. There couldn’t have been a better choice to direct the Young Company. Love’s Labour’s Lost is a charmer.

The play is perfect for young actors because it is about young men colliding with young women in a game of wit and wisdom. Having Peter Donaldson, Steven Sutcliffe and Brian Tree on board to play the grown-ups demonstrates to the young cast how Shakespeare can and should be done, particularly with language.

The battling couples read true in this delightful production, and designer Charlotte Dean has made them look gorgeous. We’ll hear more from them, I’m sure.

Love’s Labour’s Lost continues at the Tom Patterson Theatre until Oct. 4.