Fort Worth's Stolen Shakespeare Guild does tricky 'Labour'

There is a lot of love and labor in the Stolen Shakespeare Guild's production of the comedy Love's Labour's Lost, now at the Fort Worth Community Arts Center.

The company's love of the Bard is evident as the players toil mightily to fully realize the work's potential. The result is a largely pleasing, energetic production. But some may find it a chore to adore this play as much as Shakespeare's other comedies.

The overpopulated and overly complex plot deals with a quartet of young nobles who decide to commit themselves to years of study, shunning food, sleep and women as needless distractions on their road to enlightenment.

Those foolish vows survive no longer than an act or so. Once the guys see the fetching French court that drops by for a visit, they promptly forget all their promises of celibacy and self-deprivation. The rest is a series of misdirected messages, comical subterfuges, and a lot of wild and wacky wooing before things finally get worked out.

The best performance is delivered by Carter Frost as Lord Berowne. He makes the Elizabethan text extremely conversational while also conveying his character's comic befuddlement.

Also notable are Tyler Shults as the buffoonish Don Adriano de Armado and Charissa Lee as a page (who is really more of a clown) named Moth. Shults has the most comically written role and deadpans it nicely. Lee is a ball of energy and is immersed in her character. But she is also guilty of wearing her technique on her sleeve, so we are constantly aware she is acting.

The direction by husband and wife Jason and Lauren Morgan is brisk and lively with some especially nice touches in the more physically manic scenes. They also chose to do the show without accents, which, with all-amateur casts like this one, is nearly always the best way to go.

The problem with this show is that there is a reason we do not see this comedy as often as the Bard's others. It is just not as funny. It also takes forever to construct the trapdoors of its jokes and is even more bound to its times than most Shakespearean plays.

So this play may not have aged as well as some of the others. But it certainly receives a game effort from cast members who make you feel that, for them at least, it is all a labor of love.