Armado (Josef Sommer), the handsome and bombastic Spaniard, is funny when he swings his sword about with disregard for anything in its way, and just as funny when--saying, "Rust, rapier"--he kisses and resheathes it. Costard (William Hickey), his rival for the affections of Jaquenetta, wears red sneakers, striped pants, and an orange jacket with slogan buttons on the front and "Make Love Not War" embroidered on the back. When Dull drags him off, he yells, "Police brutality!"; and, soon after, he calls Armado a "Fascist Hindu!" Jaquenetta herself (Zoe Kamitses) turns out to be a yellow-stockinged blonde in a red and purple miniskirt, with sunglasses perched on her head and a transistor radio glued to her ear. Later she proves adept at swinging her hips and popping bubble gum on the downbeat.
The Princess (Diana van der Vlis) makes a spectacular entrance riding a Honda montorbike in a sliver lame pants-suit with a blue choker and helmet. Rosaline (Denise Huot), in a navy blue suit and white boots, also arrives on a Honda (which, at the opening performance, nearly sailed over the footlights and into the audience), while the other two ladies, Maria (Kathleen Dabney) and Katherine (Marian Hailey), appear on foot. The Princess' courtier Boyet (Thomas Ruisinger), in a blue jacket with yellow handkerchief, white ducks, bow tie, and black-and-white shoes, is a U.S. Southerner with a duly droll drawl.
Moth (Bryan Young), Armado's "pretty knavish page," is dressed in white with turquoise beads and sash. At the point where Shakespeare merely indicates the title of an unidentified song, Moth grabs a hand-microphone, and the amplification system fills the theatre with an entire jivy song about love. The harmony is purely triadic, but the chords progress in fresh unpredictable directions that out-Beatle the Beatles. This blaring number lends sacrastic humor to Armado's verdict, "Sweet air!"
Not to be outdone by Moth, Longaville, when it comes time to read his sonnet, picks up the hand-mike and turns the poem into a rock 'n' roll number with off-stage singers and orchestra. Following suit, Dumaine, flipping the microphone cord like a boa, caresses himself and gyrates as he belts out his rock sonnet while the other men provide a snap-fingered accompaniment--a number that deservedly stops the show.
The schoolmaster Holofernes (Stefan Gierasch), barefoot, bowlegged, and wearing a huge diaper and silver-rimmed glasses, is a middle-aged Gandhi with traces of a Bronx accent. His sidekick Nathaniel (Ken Parker) has trouble reciting without beating his right hand in time with his sing-song delivery.
In one hilarious scene, the four ladies wear bright orange and green costumes and hold mirrors backed with the same material. Behind them, four effeminate hairdressers--two platinum blonds and two brunets--are working on their coiffures, whereupon Boyet arrives in a bathrobe of the same material.
When the four nobles appear disguised as "Muscovites," they have white satin trousers and tall black-fur headgear with chin straps, and disport amusingly like a quarter of Don Cossacks. The messenger of sad tidings, Mercade (Barry Corbin), turns out to be an ambassador complete with chest decorations, attended by a pair of underlings carrying umbrellas and the indispensable attache cases.
The two parts of the play's concluding song are sung by two different trios drawn from the comic personae. And finally the stars can be seen twinkling in the darkening sky, as the object of love's labour is not lost, but only postponed.
Scholars may very likely be scandalized by Kahn's breathtaking production. But then they too are among the people Shakespeare was satirizing in this play. Disraeli had a point when he proclaimed, "Success is the child of Audacity.