Shakespeare's Globe Theatre's Love's Labour's Lost

A curtain never goes up and lights never go down when Shakespeare Globe’s perky Love’s Labour’s Lost plays Zellerbach. Musicians played in the lobby before the show began, and actors garbed in lush Renaissance gowns fed us grapes during intermission. Spectators howled with laughter at bawdy bits and vulgarisms that clarified the text. In this frankly theatrical production, actors used the aisles as entrances and playing spaces—one found his way to a spectator’s lap for a time—and we felt so much a part of the rollicking event that by the time we stood as one to applaud, it felt as though we were applauding ourselves. This production is as lucid and as over the top funny as it gets and the audience here got it so easily.