I’ve just come back from holiday in Spain (sigh!), but tonight at the Globe it seems I’m right back there again (hooray!). For starters, it’s boiling – is it ever not these days? – with the crowd aptly waving paper fans to cool themselves down. But moreover, Indiana Lown-Collins’ production of Shakespeare’s early comedy about three Spanish noblemen who decide it will be a great idea to swear off women and lock themselves away for three years of study – mere moments before a very eligible princess and her ladies arrive – is awash with sun-soaked flamenco energy. So much so that it’s even billed on the Globe’s website as ‘Shakespeare with Flamenco’.
And it really is just that. The whole Spanish thing has been dialled up to 11. There are Spanish accents (some easier to understand than others), castanets, bursts of colourful, stomping dance, and even Shakespearean spins on ‘Despacito’ and ‘Livin' La Vida Loca’ thrown in because, well, why the hell not?
Traditionally, Love’s Labour’s Lost is one of Shakespeare’s trickiest plays to pull off, which is presumably why it hasn’t been staged that often (until this summer, when it suddenly seems to be everywhere). It veers off into strange subplots, its dense wordplay is littered with Latin and elaborate puns, and that’s all before its famously unexpected, melancholy final scene arrives and sends the audience home feeling blue. Lown-Collins’ production doesn’t really do much to combat these issues – the Latin is simply swapped for Spanish quips, and the ending is still the ending. But it’s rare that I’ve seen a Globe audience having so much fun.
The dance here is very much a language in itself. It bookends scenes, claps build tension, and flamenco is used to express deep, fiery emotion. Guitar strums infuse the production with passion. Best of all is the scene where the Princess (a brilliant, scene-stealing Norah Lopez Holden) expresses her reluctance to kill a deer through a full-bodied pasodoble, in which she takes the role of the matador.
The Spanish theme does go a little overboard, though, with the supporting characters grasping for a sense of identity within it all. Amid all the Spanish puns, Armado – played with suitably full-throttle theatricality by Andro Crespo – no longer feels quite so exaggerated. Still, Katy Stephens' very funny Holofernes works as a featherbrained schoolteacher, dressed head to toe in polka dots and desperate to fit in.
Despite the play being well and truly hacked at, it’s still a bit of a minefield. My advice? Sit back and enjoy the dance. Oh, and if you can sneak a sangria in, that wouldn’t go amiss.
