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Love's Labour

Written by Jacquie Penrose

Thursday June 7th to Saturday June 9th 2012

'Love's Labour' takes a modern look beyond the "happy endings" of three of Shakespeare's comedies - 'Much Ado About Nothing', 'Twelfth Night' and 'Measure for Measure'. What might these marriages, born of disguise and pretence, be like after the celebrations are over and the curtain is down? 'Love's Labour' imagines Duke Vincentio and his wife Isabella, and Orsino and Viola, on an anniversary holiday in a delightful rural hotel owned by Beatrice and Benedict, which Hero is managing for them while they too are away celebrating. Many tensions run beneath the humour of the original plays - in the real life of marriage, the cracks are beginning to show.

author play bench production

AuthorJacquie Penrose

Jacquie Penrose

Jacquie Penrose is a writer and playwright and (with Bench Theatre) an amateur actor and director. She started writing in the 1980s and to date has written 14 plays, plus some novels and shorter works. At least 7 of her plays have been performed by Bench Theatre: 'Cross Your Heart', 'A Perfect Gentle Knight', 'Time and Tide' (trilogy), 'Renaissance', 'And God Created Michelangelo', 'Dreams of a Hero', 'The Party Guest'. She has also had a number of pieces performed as rehearsed readings by professional (Equity) actors in London, and she wrote and devised 'All About Us' a community play commissioned by Havant Borough Council (about the borough and its inhabitants) in 1990.

Jacquie has been awarded a substantial Arts Council Bursary for her writing, and in 2010, was awarded Best Director, and Best Original Play at the Totton round of the All-England Theatre Festival for 'The Party Guest'. Among several acting roles, she played Olga in Chekhov's 'Three Sisters' for which she received an excellent review however, she usually prefers to be more involved backstage. Since she joined Bench Theatre in 1976 she has directed countless productions, the first of which was 'Private Lives' in 1978. She remembers most fondly her work with the lighting design for the production of Ibsen's 'Ghosts' (a play she also directed) in 1991. Jacquie also spent several years as Editor of the Bench newsletter, 'Bench Press'; at least 5 years working on the Bench Executive Committee and 3 years as Committee Chair. She currently lives in Havant with her husband David.

other plays we've staged by this author

PlayLove's Labour

'Love's Labour' was written in 2011 by Jacquie Penrose for the Royal Shakepeare Company's "Open Stages" project. It explores the relationships between some of Shakespeare's most famous couples after the original Shakespearia play has ended.

Shakespeare's plays deal with a huge range of issues and human concerns, but well down the list is the state of marriage. There are lovers galore, and plenty of single fathers, but very few established marriages. The ones that there are, are either dysfunctional (Macbeth) or laughable (Comedy of Errors) or the background to large issues of state, power and politics (the Histories). There are some happy endings for disrupted marriages (Winter's Tale, the Dream) but on the whole the plays have weddings, not marriages. And often these 'happy' endings are underscored by other tensions that have been running through the play.

'Love's Labour' explores what happens AFTER the happy ending...

The first draft of the script can be found here. Bench members considering this play and students studying it as part of a BTEC or A level Performing Arts Course may download and/or print one copy. This play may only be performed with the permission of the author. Copyright remains at all times with the author.

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The Production

Play poster

This play will be staged at The Spring Arts and Heritage Centre (formerly Havant Arts Centre), East Street Havant - Bench Theatre's home since 1977.

Characters

Clovis
Hero
Vincentio
Isabella
Orsino
Viola

Crew

Director
Producer
Stage Manager
Programme Editor
Photography
Front of House Manager

The RSC Open Stages Project

RSC Open Stages Image

Two years ago the Bench Theatre successfully toured workshops and performances of 'The Party Guest' by Jacquie Penrose to schools and colleges.

This year, as part of the RSC's Open Stages project, we have an exciting new proposal. During the autumn we are offering workshops for BTEC and A level students of Performing Arts, exploring ways of developing new work using characters and themes from Shakespeare.

The Project

In response to the RSC brief, playwright Jacquie Penrose is developing a new play (working title, "Love's Labour") on a Shakespearean theme, for production in early 2012. It will explore the idea that a number of Shakespeare's plays end with weddings, but we know nothing of the subsequent marriages; given what we know of the courtship, what might those marriages be like? What would happen if the couples met each other? How could theme and character from the source plays inform a modern play, and how might such a play throw light back on the originals? The developing play will explore these ideas, and ideas generated by students during the workshops will help shape the final version of the play.

The Source Plays by William Shakespeare

An Outline of the New Play From The Author

I propose taking three couples from three different plays, all with 'happy' endings: Vincentio (the duke) and Isabella from 'Measure for Measure'; Orsino and Viola from 'Twelfth Night' & Beatrice and Benedict from 'Much Ado...'. Themes running through the originals will surface again: the enjoyment of power (sexual if not political), sexual and gender ambivalence, disguise and game-playing, an perceived threat to social stability.

Beatrice and Benedict have opened a small exclusive hotel in a lush Mediterranean countryside. The other two couples have arrived for a summer's week away from it all. It could be the 1930s however style will be deliberately vague, but unrest and war rumble somewhere in the background. Beatrice and Benedict are still together but the cracks are showing. The banter and joking that fuelled their friendship is becoming tedious. They try a bit of dressing up.

Orsino began to be interested in Viola when he thought she was a boy, and while he was still holding a futile and ridiculously romantic torch for Olivia. The frisson of the discovery of the gender change has worn off. Viola is still in love, but feisty and smart girl that she is, she is beginning to see feet of clay. She can't forget how quickly he switched his allegiance to her from Olivia, and was that a hint of disappointment when he discovered she was a girl?

Vincentio has a cruel streak a mile wide, and Isabel a stubborn one. This was in effect a forced marriage, and her only means of resistance has been continuing silence and withholding her most precious thing - herself. He will of course take by force what is his by right. Orsino, meanwhile, finds himself drawn to this dangerous and charismatic man. Maybe he needs spicier food for love.

There are no happy endings or reconciliations - an idle week in the sun causes the cracks to widen.

Jacquie Penrose

Auditions

Here is the casting information for Love's Labour.

Sunday March 25th at 2pm or Monday 26th at 7.30 at The Spring

3F 3M

Vincenzio - probably an older man (having grabbed himself a young bride). Probably a Mafia Don and proud of it.

Isabella - young. She wanted to dedicate her life to God until Vincenzio intervened. Her virginity was sacred to her. She has fought to preserve it, and her silence.

Orsino - wealthy landowner, arrogant, attractive, fickle, proud of old-fashioned values. Probably under 40 and possibly gay. But would never admit it.

Viola - young, smart, feisty, used to looking after herself. Fell for Orsino, but there are follies of youth.

Hero - seems very young. Married to the absent Claudio, a marriage based on very little. Feeling lonely.

Clovis - the invented character, a distant cousin of Beatrice and Benedict (and Hero). Youngish and charming, he helps run the B and B. Is in love with Hero but too nice to move in on her just yet. Acts as narrator to audience.

All parts have equal weight

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