Shakespeare in the 40's

First off I loved the play. Great acting and Setting it in the forties during war time was brilliant!. I thought changing the setting added to the themes of Love's Labour's Lost. 


For example:


 In this play the women make their suitors go through the test of a year apart to verify their love. They know that True love will pass the test of time while infatuation will not. In the play the men were about to go to war, that kind of situation is a recipe for extreme infatuation and historically it was. In Shakespeare's day, women fell for sonnet writing gentlemen, the same way war brides fell for soldiers so this theme translated well to the change of setting.


The men in the play give up all worldly things to study like soldier going to war giver up the real world to go fight, they still want these things so its an inner battle. 


Another thing I really like about the play was the role of accents. A lot of the character had different accents such as: new jersey, spanish, british, cockney, etc. I thought this was an interesting choice for the director. I don't know for sure what he was trying to say but for me I thought it added to the importance of language in the play. 


One thing I didn't think transferred well was the role of the teacher. The actor was decent but I felt her role didn't make as much sense as it did in the original setting. I thought incorporating the play scene into a radio show was genius. People didn't go around performing spontaneous plays in the forties so I wasn't sure that scene would work with the modern setting but they figured out a way to make it work and I loved it.