The Bard’s Pie Fight

Shakespeare’s “Love’s Labor’s Lost,” his first great comedy with perhaps his best title, is touched with the spirit of commedia dell’arte in the form of Costard, a wily clown in the court of the French king of Navarre. What if Costard re-imagined the comedy in his own clownish head?

That’s the logic behind the otherwise blissfully anti-logical free adaptation of the Bard’s work by the Los Angeles-based Troubadour Theatre Company, in a visiting production at the Grove Theatre Center’s Festival Amphitheatre in Garden Grove.

In Costard’s mind (director Matthew Walker has cast himself in the role), everyone at court is a clown, starting with the king (Travis Clark). It only follows that you’d retitle your re-imagining “Clown’s Labor’s Lost.”

Not as good a title, and not as great a comedy. What is gained is beautifully coordinated ensemble playing--and a wily post-modern attitude toward the commedia style. What is lost is much of the original brilliant word play; the language here is updated, and much of the delivery is freestyle.

Rosaline, a lady attending to the ever-plotting princess of France, tellingly bids farewell to her lover, Biron, with the words, “A jest’s prosperity lies in the ear/Of him that hears it, never in the tongue/Of him that makes it.” Yet here the jests are mostly seen, not heard.

It’s nevertheless a legitimate approach to the play, but Walker and company come at it as if all audiences know the comedy well, which we don’t--this is Shakespeare’s least-staged comedy. (An outdoor summer audience might be more likely to go with a whacked-out version of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” say.)

Still, even while threatening to turn an elegant comedy into a pie fight, “Clown’s Labor’s Lost” underlines Shakespeare’s central idea that when people fall in love, they fall into foolishness.

Walker has devised an extremely simple staging befitting traveling troubadours: a large cube (with hidden openings) out of which the clown-actors pop like so many jacks-in-the-boxes; a minimum of props (there is one big custard pie); a few landing pads for the acrobatic finale; and a simple banner proclaiming “Troubadour.”

The first scene, involving the princess (Jennifer Jean) and her ladies Rosaline (Rachel Wolfe) and Maria (Carissa Barnett), becomes an elaborate dance of buffoonery with a mere fold-up chair.

This show, in essence, sets up two clown teams--his and her’s--each vying for dominance. The guys’ club uses sheer jesting. It is this jesting, by King Biron (Michael Sulprizio) and pal Longaville (Timothy Groff), that finally forces the princess to call for a truce, which ends the comedy on a melancholy note.

Other characters of note are the well-named Navarre sheriff, Dull (Michael Teele), and lovesick Don Adriano de Armado (Guy Totaro), who shows off sword-swallowing.

In this edition, the gals have a theatrical advantage over the original. Especially brilliant is a nightmare in which the men have a vision of the princess, Rosaline and Maria as giant, glowing Cirque du Soleil-like creatures with wiggly arms dancing to Harry Belafonte’s “Afterlife.”

The physical clowning is as rapid-fire as the topical jokes, from Taco Bell to the French winning the World Cup. So much musical tomfoolery is made of Maria’s name that the show threatens to turn into an “Saturday Night Live” lampoon of “West Side Story” (the risk of an all-clown-all-the-time approach to Shakespeare). It can be done, though, and well with the teamwork of these traveling players.

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* “Clown’s Labor’s Lost,” Grove Festival Amphitheatre, 12852 Main St., Garden Grove. Friday-Sunday, 8:30 p.m. Ends July 25. $20. (714) 741-9555. Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes.

Matthew Walker: Costard

Travis Clark: King of Navarre

Michael Sulprizio: Biron

Jennifer Jean: Princess of France

Rachel Wolfe: Rosaline

Timothy Groff: Longaville

Carissa Barnett: Maria

Guy Totaro: Don Armado

Michael Teele: Dull

Guillermo Robles: Tech

A Troubadour Theatre Company production of Shakespeare’s comedy. Directed by Matthew Walker.