Who have you allowed into your home during the pandemic? In Shakespeare’s Love’s Labor’s Lost, a group of young men is determined not to waste this time — they will study, they will better themselves, they will not get distracted by anything, most especially the least productive distraction of all in their eyes, love. To ensure this, they vow that they won’t even let women inside the walls of their kingdom. So when visitors do come to Navarre the king has no other recourse but to make the guests sleep outside in his fields. But in time, like many of us during these long COVID months, the men’s resolve to keep separate from other people begins to wane; the hilarity of their compromises, work-arounds and eventually bold face lies, becomes the action of this extremely timely 400 year old play.
