‘I owe a lot to the ways of Mark, Elon and Jeff’
RSC director Emily Burns and designer Joanna Scotcher are bringing Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost into realm of today’s tech billionaires
LOVE’S Labour’s Lost, one of Shakespeare’s lesser-known plays, deals with a group of lords, led by King Ferdinand.
But in director Emily Burns’ production they are depicted as 21st century tech billionaires who take an oath to restrict their diets, track their sleep and give up the company of women.
Leasing an island in the South Pacific to use as their playground, all seems to be going well in their process of self-improvement, until a Princess comes looking to get that land back.
Emily, what drew you to want to direct this play?
The play is occupied with the arrogance of youth, but within that arrogance is a deep anxiety about playing at being a grown up. There’s a group of men desperate for renown and respect despite seemingly not having done anything to merit it, and a group of women blindly convinced of their superior maturity and understanding of the world. They’re all yet to discover the chaos and uncertainty that characterises much of adulthood, and I found that deeply funny and moving. I also found a way into the play through the political story, which is often brushed over. Typically the oath the lords take is seen as the main plot point, but I wanted to build a production that engages fully with the story catalyst – the Princess coming to reclaim the land the lords have leased.
How did you come to direct it?
I was invited to meet with Daniel Evans and Tamara Harvey, the RSC’s new co-artistic directors, shortly after their tenure was announced and we discussed Love’s Labour’s Lost as an exciting play to open the season. It’s an early Shakespeare play, I’m a (relatively) early career director, it’s early in the season – there’s something fitting and galvanising about that.
How do you both feel about being the first show in Daniel and Tamara’s inaugural season?
It’s very exciting. Seventeen of the 19 actors in the show are making their RSC debuts, just like me. And the global perspective this production takes and the brilliant cast that we have assembled within that context feels like an inspiring statement of intent from both Daniel and Tamara.
How are you approaching the play?
The lords and the oath they sign made me think of another group of privileged people – the 21st century tech billionaires who, having conquered market capitalism, decide to conquer either outer space or embark on a process of ‘selfimprovement’.
So I’m depicting the lords as kind of ‘tech bros’, a very specific group of men who, just like the lords in the play, might well decide to ‘hack’
their lives: fasting except for one meal a day; tracking exactly three hours of sleep per night; and not seeing any women in case they sap their focus and energy. I owe a lot to the recent predilections of Mark (Zuckerberg), Elon (Musk) and Jeff (Bezos). I’m setting the play on a contemporary fictional island in the South Pacific, somewhere the lords have leased, to create their own gaudy, high end playground without any concern for the indigenous people. For the lords the island is just part of an extensive property portfolio, but for the Princess, who arrives in a bid to reclaim the land, it means something much more, something with a cultural and emotional value, not a monetary one.
This gives us a visual corollary for the cultural chasm that exists between the men and the Princess in Shakespeare’s text – the former who treat language as something to will a world they want into being, the latter who believes language describes a tangible world.
approached the show’s design?
The set is effectively a futuristic kind of monolith, a high-end resort for the global elite, where Ferdinand has established his court. Initially it should read as impressive, moneyed, but essentially grounded in the earth that belongs to someone else. It should feel at odds with the island’s natural environment, an impressive but conflicting space. Beyond the court, the island resort hosts a luxury golf course where the Princess, who initially isn’t allowed to enter the lords’ ‘inner sanctum’, makes her base and where she takes part in a female pro golf tournament.
A lot of the people who reside at this resort will wear what might be known as ‘sports luxe’, clothing that represents what we’ve called ‘stealth wealth’, very contemporary and based on a lot of high-end brands. We’ve both been interested in the disarming way fashion is used for power. Take someone like Mark Zuckerberg – he’s often pictured in a grey T-shirt but that T-shirt will cost over £400.
Love’s Labour’s Lost runs in the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, until May 18. rsc.org.uk / 01789 331111