By William Shakespeare. At: Oak Park Festival Theatre at Austin Gardens. Phone: 708-445-4440 ; $20-25. Runs through: Aug. 21
In Shakespeare, the word is king; that's especially the case in Love's Labour's Lost, one of the Bard's most verbose and consequently least-performed plays. So it's no surprise that it took all of Oak Park Festival Theatre's ( OPFT ) 35 years of existence to finally perform the playout in the open air, as Shakespeare intended it.
I must confess that OPFT's production was my first "Shakespeare in the park" experience and I had yet to realize that more pesky than unknotting Shakespeare's pointed wordplay would be defending myself from mosquitoes; I think I suffered a bite for about every one or two puns written in the script.
If you think processing Shakespearean intellect is tough in a well-air-conditioned environment, try having bugs, barking dogs and chirping crickets accompanying dialogue that already travels poorly outdoors to begin with. Top that with the witticism of Love's Labour's Lost and you might expect incomprehensible disaster, but OPFT's production manages to triumph over it all, even if just by the tip of its tongue.
Shakespeare works best with a cast of superb actors from top to bottom, especially in the comedies, where the wise upper class are always the fools and the foolish lower class tend to be the wise. Although OPFT doesn't boast that depth, its cast has a handful of certified talents in key placesactors who can command both the stage and the language, even in an environment as volatile as the outdoors on a summer night 24 hours after a rain.
The standout is easily Joseph Wycoff, current Next Theatre Artistic Associate who plays Biron, the wittiest of the four young lords who swear a scholarly oath that includes three years of abstinence and chastityjust as the Princess of France is to arrive with the ladies of her court. Wycoff possesses the skill that the finest and most experienced Shakespearean actors have: the ability to communicate intent and emotion through the elaborate verbal smoke screen that is Shakespeare's word and meter. Along with a few of the other "Shakes-perienced" ( if the Bard can make up words, so can I ) members of in the cast, including Franette Liebow ( Boyet ) , Lydia Berger ( Rosaline ) and Chicago mainstay Richard Henzel as the off-kilter and "learned" Holofernes, Wycoff truly owns the word and as such the audience gravitates toward his performance.
That's not to detract from the younger talents, but Love's Labour's Lost is a demanding play. Most of the cast handled the chiding or the more comical language well, but the dramatic, love-struck and expository dialogue was what separated the veterans from the amateurs, so to speak.
As such, the mischief of the second half ( starting at Act IV, Scene III ) suits the abilities of the ensemble better than the first. OPFT Artistic Director Jack Hickey, who also served as director of this production as well as many past Shakespeare comedies for the Festival Theatre pulls the comedy outward and keeps the mood light. He understands the value of physicality and gesture in such a talk-heavy and cryptic play, which allows for this version of Love's Labour's Lost to be light and fun enough for outdoor summer fare.
There were some issues with sound pick-up as some characters' lines were lost, not to mention the general noise that accompanies an outdoor performance, but despite that, the additional challenge of the material and the persistent mosquitoes, the spirit and wit of Shakespeare endures.