This play is impossible to perform whole or even reasonably intact in our time. Connoisseurs can only read it and trust in their feeble imaginations. It was written for the court of Elizabeth I, an audience that cannot be remotely duplicated in modern times. Yet it is exquisite in every detail. So Branagh, brilliantly, did what he could do with it, and the outcome is a miracle. He saves as much of the gorgeous Shakespeare as he can, including a climactic speech given, of course, by himself. And then interpolates those marvelous numbers that remind me of "Pennies from Heaven," except none are ironic, all are romantic. Ken, may I live to see your "Lear," and look you, botch it not.
Review of Love's Labour's Lost
