Love’s Labour’s Lost

No Nude Men Productions presents William Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost. One part comedy of manners, one part scathing satire, one part adolescent love story, one part human tragedy, the play chronicles a few weeks in the lives of Ferdinand, Biron, Longaville, and Dumain, four rich young party boys about town who swear off love after Ferdinand’s latest fling with spoiled and precocious Princess goes awry during a group dance to the Killers — you know, just like we all do when we’ve had too much to drink. Navigating through a parade of cocktails and barbed witticisms, the lady and her friends, Rosaline, Maria, and Katherine concoct a little poetic justice for the boys but in the process find themselves enmeshed in a love triangle between the local tramp, the local drunk, and the local euro-trash fresh from another tour in pretension. Soon, things are so mixed up even Boyet, everyone’s favorite gay BFF, can’t keep up and it all goes down one Mardi Gras night at the new hip neighborhood bar run by two sexy redheads who can’t wait for all these stylish drama queens to move on.

Fantasticly bitchy, engagingly sexy, and ultimately sad in that subtle, cutting way that Shakespeare’s just so darn good at, LLL is considered one of the Bard’s masterworks, a top-notch tragicomedy featuring some of his best poetry and most memorable characters. A scathing portrayal of shallowness and hedonism, it oscillates between funny and heartbreaking with a swiftness reminiscent of the emotional mood swings of its immature protagonists so busy trying to enjoy life that they’re forgetting to actually live it. Stuart Bousel directs.