Word: uphoff
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...Uphoff's conception, the King of Navarre and his friends are a group of prep school boys who want to be alone with their books and toys. They cavort on a fantastical playground that comes complete with a swing, a seesaw, a sandbox, a basketball hoop and, of course, an electric train set. The visiting Princess of France and her ladies in waiting find the men's actions, particularly their vow not to see women, highly amusing. Needless to say, the men immediately fall in love with the women and decide to forget their vows and begin wooing. Accompanied...
...Uphoff, however, has clearly gone over the text line by line and knows exactly what she is doing. Her actors actually seem to understand what they're saying and not a single double entendre is missed. While she has cut some speeches and reassigned others, it seems to have added to, not confused, the coherency of the plot...
...Uphoff also ably maintains the balance between the literal Elizabethan text and the modern preppie kindergarten created in this production. For example, it makes perfect sense in this version that the two main courtiers, Berowne and Rosaline, would flirt while playing basketball and that the swain Costard would listen to a Walkman while he worked. The chaotic profusion of toys (everything from a Mr. Potato Head to a Rubiks Cube gets used in the course of the production) only heightens the artificiality of the perfect kingdom Navarre and his friends are trying to establish...
...nobility by his own plain speaking. Broder's enthusiasm is infectious and he gets more laughs than anyone else in the show. Broder even pulls off a rather contrived time warp joke that could easily have flopped. Boyet is one of the few mature characters in the play and Uphoff (who doubles as her own costume designer) stresses this by contrasting Boyet's formal suits with the other women's hippie attire. Delbanco does a terrific job of playing den mother and her character stands out more than it might in the hands of a lesser actor...
While this production of Love's Labor's Lost clearly has Uphoff's vision stamped all over it, credit should be given to set designers David McMahon and Chuck Admanis in helping her to realize it. The set pieces cleverly combine function and style, as with the life-size doll house and white picket fence that mark "the palace" into which no woman must enter...