Love’s Labour’s Lost

Abstract

Some of the brightest moments in the fourteen years of the Festival were strung together in Edgar Reynolds loving presentation of Love’s Labor’s Lost…[Costumes] …were described as “modern dress modeled on Renaissance modes.” This is a modest claim for the dazzling variety of line and color with which Mr. Morgan brilliantly dressed the attractive cast. “Modern” ranged from brief Greek chitons, adapted for four leggy huntresses, to 1930’s musical comedy top hats and tails, and incidentally included Edwardian ruffles, striped jeans, tank shirts, and anything else that came to a theatrically fertile imagination. The effect was that of love games throughout the ages…I’ve never heard endless couplets spoken better…Even the “clouded” pathos of the conclusion had a happiness that I had not seen there before. The cast was uniformly good. Scott Porter… achieved a personal success… William Peters, Allen Nause, and Robert Buchanan… were excellent. Sarah Albertson… [performed] beautifully, as did her fetching sorority sisters: Holly Barron… dark beauty and provocative husky voices, Mary Ed Porter… blonde simpering sex, Judith Marx… quiet auburn grace. Henry Hoffman brought real elegance, as well as the usual false physical and verbal posturing, to [Don Armado]… Robin Johnson… sly, vulgar, engaging—is one of the better comic actors of any Festival season… Sidney Hibbert, as Boyet, rightfully claimed our total attention every time he spoke or moved. He is an extraordinary actor… This was a personal triumph for Director Reynolds. (J. H. Crouch, Shakespeare Quarterly 22 [1971]: 382–83)