Anyone strolling along through Dyke Road Park this sunny spring evening may have heard the actors proclaiming their lines in the nearby Brighton Open Air Theatre and thought, oh, they’re putting on a Shakespeare play. But these are not The Bard’s words. They come instead from the 21st century pen of Ryan J-W Smith, whose plays inhabit the world of Shakespeare, complete with rhyming iambic pentameter and convoluted comic plotlines. Tonight is a double header of Love Labours Won and Sweet Love Adieu, two romantic comedies that examine approaches to love and the ensuing chaos that tends to follow.
On one hand there’s the kind of love at first sight that instantly blots out all else, much like the Athenian youths in Midsummer Night’s Dream after they have been slipped something in their sleep by the fairies. Then there’s the kind of loyal, monogamous love that age cannot wither, whose eternal summer shall not fade, whose course never did run smooth.
In Love Labours Won, two young Dukes, Valentine and Caesus, are discussing their romantic strategies. Caesus advocates sleeping with as many women as possible, joshing Valentine for his devotion to one woman. Echoing Much Ado About Nothing, we get the sense that this “locker room chat” will probably end up with someone eating their words when wingèd Cupid strikes.
And like in Midsummer Night’s Dream, Caesus falls instantly in love with the next person he sees, who happens to be Annabelle fresh from her role as Puck in that very play. In the midst of various deceptions, subterfuges, and a play within the play, Caesus and Valentine wrestle with the urge to stray from their betrothed, both soon intent on wooing Annabelle instead. Essentially, they are wrestling with their madonna-whore complexes, pingponging between thinking of women as either sex objects or virginal, constant wives. And “whore” is a word that is thrown around a lot tonight. Whether it’s the male characters indulging in peacocking banter or the women characters throwing the insult at each other. The misogyny of Shakespeare’s time is retained and even ramped up for comic effect. It’s maybe a slightly questionable approach…
But the beauty of the plays are that they are intricately faithful to the style and tropes of Shakespeare’s work. The idea is not to imagine what Shakespeare would’ve written in modern times if he was woke, but rather to create a loving imitation of that whole theatrical world, with many nods and winks in the direction of the original works. In terms of the language Smith has employed, he makes it look completely effortless to write a play that conforms meticulously not only to iambic pentameter but to a two-line rhyming scheme. The lines aren’t as densely rich in poetry and humanity as Shakespeare’s, of course, but they do have a magical lightness to them. These are perfect plays for the Shakespeare-curious. You never have to feel like you’re wading through lost meaning to figure out what’s going on, and it’s always easy to keep track of who’s who.
The second play of the evening, Sweet Love Adieu, is a more farcical, bawdier and chaotic enquiry into love. With a hint of panto and enough innuendos to fill a Carry On film twice over, it maybe elicits the same kind of glee from tonight’s audience as Shakespeare’s comparatively tame smut might’ve elicited when first performed. It takes us down some slightly dark alleys, when the rampaging lustiness of the male characters enters the area of assault and grooming. It’s not played as dark humour though. The men’s crimes are just dirty little secrets, hushed up with the aid of money and power, the women left to brush themselves off and get on with it.
These jokes have a kind of shock value that abuses the excuse of Shakespearean anachronism. Some people would struggle to laugh at some of the humour – for example, women who are tired of having men call them sluts and whores. One suspects if there are any Gen-Zers in the audience the word “cringe” is probably pounding through their minds. It could be said that the play, first performed in 2001, is itself a historical artefact, from a time when we didn’t think about such things as much. But that might be a bit generous, especially seeing as there was a rewrite in 2016.
The play is action-packed with much running around and frolicking. Like tonight’s first play, it’s full of Shakespearean tropes: an Iago-like character plots against his employer, who is a cross between Sir Andrew Aguecheek from Twelfth Night and Harvey Weinstein; there’s a masked ball like in Much Ado About Nothing; deception by cross-dressing, see Twelfth Night, As You Like It, etc. But there’s a bit more of the modern in this one: a gay Catholic priest who has clearly groomed one of the male characters; some man-on-man kissing; a brief politically-charged soliloquy that mentions bankers and oil money; references to mace, tasers and Pulp Fiction.
Icky sexual dynamics aside, the play is great fun and gets a lot of laughs as the absurdity ramps up. Whereas Love Labours Lost is very much about facing up to the commitment of long-term love and fidelity, it’s less clear what Sweet Love Adieu has to tell us. The characters are hedonistic and chaotic, perhaps reflecting the younger age of the playwright at the time of writing. At one point, one of the actors apparently breaks character and, though still speaking in rhyme, has a rant about the writer of the play. There’s a sense of nihilism, like the play has become sentient and is imploding because it knows it doesn’t have a very clear message for us…in a good way.
If most recent work Pretty, Witty Nell is anything to go by, Rogue Shakespeare are on an upward trajectory. The skill of Ryan J.W. Smith as a writer in the Shakespearean style is virtuosic and throughout there is an evident passion for the depth and rhythm of the language. It’s hugely admirable that he has thrown himself so fully into the role of resurrecting Shakespeare’s playwright brain. In some ways it’s madness, yet there is definitely method in’t.
Brighton Open Air Theatre, Thursday 23rd May 2024
Runs until Saturday 25th May. Tickets here.
