Love's Labour's Lost at 2nd Stage Theatre

Love's Labour's Lost abounds in sophisticated wordplay, puns, and literary allusions and is filled with clever pastiches of contemporary poetic forms. Three noble companions take an oath to devote themselves to three years of study, promising not to give in to the company of women - one somewhat more hesitantly than the others. He reminds the king that the princess and her three ladies are coming to the kingdom, and when the king and his men meet the princess and her ladies they all fall comically, instantly in love. There are numerous sub-plots and a play-within-the-play at the end of which there is a bitter twist in the story, which is an unusual ending for Shakespeare and Elizabethan comedy. The first recorded performance of Love's Labour's Lost was in 1597 followed by one in 1605, but it was not performed again until 1839.