Love’s Labour’s Lost

Though Love’s Labour’s Lost was performed throughout Shakespeare’s active career, the play then disappeared from the British stage for almost two hundred years. Today, however, its popularity is high, both with theatre critics and audiences. In this study, Miriam Gilbert focuses primarily on six productions: on the Elizabethan stage, on the Victorian Stage, the Peter Brooke and John Barton productions at Stratford-upon-Avon, Michael Kahn’s 1968 staging in America and the 1984 BBC television version. The relationships between the productions receive special attention. Over the years, productions have stressed the darker side of the play, as actors, directors and critics have found Love’s Labour’s Lost a more subtle and complex play than early commentators might suggest.