Lost Labor's Loved

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by Kirk Wood Bromley

directed by Aaron Beall

presented at Nada, 1998

Equal parts poetic invention, theatric repetition, cultural synthesis, metempsychotic transference, and simple sequel, Bromley's Life's Loss's Loved picks up the action of Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost six months (and 400 years) later in order to investigate once again the timeless themes and motivations of the inhabitants of Navarre.

This play, however, is not only a continuation of its precedent's plot; it is a strange hybrid of dramatic completion, "stufft with images, sounds, nodes, links, series, smudges, metaphors, and projections" of its prequel. Taking place in modern day Vermont, each character (save one) has its ghost in the former work. The action not only acknowledges the facts of the past, but it coordinates itself with them in order to render "simulcast concoctions" of the future. The result is a play existing then and now, words speaking directly and evasively, characters moving forward and backward in time.

This play by Bromley will undoubtedly stimulate investigation into its arcane connections with Shakespeare's original piece; but it will as undoubtedly give rise to even more autonomous theatric and non-theatric questions - who are we, where do we come from, how different have we become, and where are we going? For answers we can now again look to Life, Love, Labor, and Loss and their endless, alliterative, passionate play across cultures, times, and stages.