Laura Occasionally Blogs

mamaredcloud put up the first installment of a Love's Labours recap. I better get going on this!



Act III, Scene 1: Super-short one-page scene with a bunch of guys I don't really care about, although now is as good a time as any to introduce the First and Second Lords Dumaine, who will be palling around with Bertram and Parolles at the army base or whatever later. The Duke of Florence is like WHERE ARE MY TROOPS and the Lords Dumaine are like, uh, you know, around.

Act III, Scene 2: Lavatch brings the Countess a letter from Bertram where he reports of Helena, "I have wedded her, not bedded her, and sworn to make the 'not' eternal." Har har har. The Countess is like, what a jackass. Helena also has a letter from Bertram, essentially: When you can get my ring, which you CAN'T, and when you are pregnant with my child, which you will NEVER BE, then I'll call you my wife. Helena hears Bertram has gone off the wars and she gives a long speech in which she worries that she has driven him to run away and if he gets killed, it's her fault.

Act III, Scene 3: Even shorter scene with the Duke and Bertram looking out over the battlefield. Seriously, it's like three lines long. What is this, Antony and Cleopatra?

Thoughts: Maybe I'm just a Philistine, but Scene 2 is the only scene out of these three that I would even bother staging. I don't think the others add much to the plot. I'm not even sure how or why they would be staged in a theatre--they're so short and meanwhile-somewhere-very-impressive that they seem more like movie scenes.

Anyway, Scene 2 is pretty good. It sets up the two impossible tasks (two? don't comedy sketches and fairy tales always follow the rule of three?) Helena will need to accomplish to "win" Bertram. (I guess Task #1 was curing the king.) The only problem I see with this plan is that Bertram sort of tossed off those tasks like a joke, like, "When pigs fly!", not, you know, a list of things to do, which is how Helena is of course going to take it. She's such a go-getter!

But that doesn't seem to have occurred to Helena yet. She seems genuine in her worry about Bertram's safety. She still loves the little jerk.

And it's in this scene that I first thing Bertram really is a jerk. When he was first told he had to marry Helena, he was upset about it, and he said nasty things in the heat of the moment, but that can be forgiven. But now he's just continuing to be super whiny and passive-aggressive in his bitchy little notes, and it's not attractive.

The Countess agrees with me. She tells Helena she's washed her hands of Bertram, and she is her only kid now. (Harsh, Mom!) She blames Parolles, whom she describes as

A very tainted fellow, and full of wickedness.
My son corrupts a well-derived nature
With his inducement.

Yeah he does.