By Ellen McCarthy
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 25, 2007; WE18
Love. Who needs it when you have this twinkling night sky to contemplate? And truth and beauty and the existential mysteries of the universe and . . .
My God. Would you look at the legs shooting out of that miniskirt?
It's knotty romance, Shakespeare '60s style, and this time the love really is free.
Well, monetarily, at least.
Tradition resumes at Rock Creek Park's Carter Barron Amphitheatre this week with the Shakespeare Theatre Company's 17th annual Free for All, this time restaging a psychedelic production of the Bard's early comedy "Love's Labor's Lost."
"This play, for so many reasons, seemed like such a perfect play for the park. It makes you feel like you're at a rock concert," says Stephen Fried, the company's resident assistant director. "It's this sort of celebration of a production -- such a wonderful thing to watch out there."
Like all Shakespeare Free for All shows, this one was originally produced for the company's main stage during its previous season. The play follows three noblemen who vow to abstain from bodily pleasures -- and women -- while seeking great knowledge. Of course, that's when a ravishing princess and her ladies-in-waiting show up and throw academic devotion out the window.
Shakespeare Theatre Company's artistic director, Michael Kahn, brought the story into 1960s India, with a Beatles-type rock band seeking enlightenment from a maharishi and finding themselves entangled with a pack of lovely ladies in big boots and little dresses. The play's clown becomes a pothead, the robes become bell-bottoms and the whole thing is set to rock anthems and sitar music.
The production, which was also staged in Stratford-upon-Avon for the Royal Shakespeare Company's Complete Works Festival in August, was deemed a "frisky mingling of Elizabethan wit and Nehru-jacketed satire" by Post theater critic Peter Marks.
About half the cast is new for the Free for All production, but Fried, who is directing, says the show has been tweaked only slightly to fit the outdoor stage.
But the setting fits, he adds, because the sun's retreat over the course of the evening in many ways reflects the arc of the narrative. "It starts as this bright, sunny production and then it moves to twilight over the course of the play."
"There's this magic that occurs out in the amphitheater," Fried says. "Being out there under the stars, watching lovers talk about love -- you can't get much better than that as far as I'm concerned."
Free tickets are available on the day of the performance at: Carter Barron Amphitheatre, 16th Street and Colorado Avenue NW; The Washington Post (weekdays only), 1150 15th St. NW; Shakespeare Theatre Company, 450 Seventh St. NW. No performance Monday.
Love's Labor's Lost Carter Barron Amphitheatre 202-334-4790 Through June 3
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